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U.S. Con Man Posing As Billionaire Carlos Slim's Associate Convicted Of Fraud And Money Laundering

This article is more than 8 years old.

Troy Stratos, a 47-year-old Californian who claimed to represent Mexican telecom Tycoon Carlos Slim Helú in a scheme to defraud a Pennsylvania financial manager of $11.25 million, was convicted by a jury in U.S. District Court in Sacramento last week. He was found guilty of four counts of wire fraud and two of money laundering.

Asked if Stratos ever had any relation with Slim or any of his corporations, Arturo Elías, Slim's spokesperson and son-in-law told me: "Absolutely nothing. We found out about him [Stratos] by reading the press."

His lack of any connection to Slim and his business empire did not stop Stratos from selling himself as an associate of the world's second richest person in a plan to purchase 40 million of shares of Facebook stock before the Internet giant conducted its initial public offering through a fictitious Slim company called “Soumaya Securities.” By naming it after Slim’s late wife, Soumaya, Stratos tried to give the phony investment company a touch of authenticity.

According to a May 2013 superseding inducement (he was originally indicted in 2011), Stratos, who operated the scam under the name "Ken Dennis," told Tim Burns, a Philadelphia-based investment manager, that there were more shares available to Slim than he wanted and that others were going to purchase the excess. Stratos offered to include the investor in the deal to purchase the extra shares.

Burns, who pleaded guilty to embezzlement and agreed to testify against Stratos after his clients lost more than $11 million, agreed to purchase the shares and to pay Stratos for facilitating the deal. Between April 2011 and August 2011, Stratos was given $11.25 million by Burns towards the purchase of the shares, the FBI said.  

But Stratos used the money for personal luxuries and to pay off civil claims against him.

According to the FBI, Stratos repeatedly told Burns the deal was being delayed for various reasons, including referring to a fictitious deal involving Steve Jobs, the founders of Google , and other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. After Stratos was arrested and taken into federal custody in 2011, Stratos, through text messages and a telephone call from prison, continued to tell Burns that the deal was real and that he could refund the investor’s money. By this time, Stratos had spent nearly all of the $11.25 million.

During the 9-day trial in Sacramento, prosecutors played phone recordings, in which the man prosecutors say was Stratos boasted that his connections with Facebook higher-ups were so deep that he knew when co-founder Mark Zuckerberg used the bathroom, The Sacramento Bee reported.

The FBI said that Stratos faces up to 20 years in prison for mail and wire fraud, and a maximum statutory penalty for money laundering of 10 years. The sentence date has not been set because he will face a second trial in the Fall on related charges that he took 8 million from comedian Eddie Murphy’s ex-wife to invest in Dubai. No decision has been made on whether to sentence him before or after the second trial.

Twitter : @DoliaEstevez