Skill Games Scammers Plead Guilty

Six individuals out of South Florida have pleaded guilty in a skills game scheme.

The scammers raised $21 million from investors for a “Social Voucher” mobile gaming app that never existed.  It was promoted as an app that combined the best of the internet: playing games and shopping.  The concept was supposed to allow individuals to operate online stores with merchandise they bought with money they made winning games.

And while "Social Voucher" may not have been an actual thing, the scheme was running from 2013 to 2018.

Paul Geraci, Ted Romeo, Michael Assenza, Paul Vandivier, and Cindy Vandivier have admitted charges of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy while another individual, 79-year-old Gerald Parker of Juno Beach, is set to be tried in front of a jury in September.

According to court documents, an undercover detective had infiltrated the group that ensnared some 300 people across the U.S.

Prosecutors claim the scheme promised the nonexistent app would be worth more than $1 billion.

Serial scammer Assenza, a 44-year-old Boca Raton resident, this month was handed a four-year prison term after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud.  He is the only one to be convicted so far.

Previously, Assenza was sentenced in 2006 to five years prison time after pleading guilty to securities fraud and money laundering, admitting he was part of a $5.3 million Boca Raton-based scheme.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com