Glastonbury Men Charged with Using Thousands of Stolen Identities to Defraud FanDuel and Other Online Gambling Sites of $3 Million

As alleged in court documents and statements made in court, Kapoor and Lillaney conspired to defraud online gambling companies, primarily FanDuel, by signing up for accounts using the personal identifying information (“PII”) of identity theft victims in Connecticut and elsewhere in order to take advantage of promotional “bonuses,” “credits,” or “bonus bets” that were offered when a user opened an account or made an initial bet. To open the gambling accounts, Kapoor and Lillaney purchased the PII of thousands of victims on the darknet and through the encrypted messaging service Telegram. They also maintained accounts at websites such as BeenVerified.com and TruthFinder.com to obtain additional background information on identity theft victims, and used the information to answer verification questions when signing up for the gambling accounts. If Kapoor and Lillaney won a bet using a bonus bet, the winnings were transferred to virtual stored value card, backed by an FDIC-insured financial institution, which FanDuel allowed account holders to use to make deposits to and withdrawals from their FanDuel account. They then transferred the proceeds from their scheme from the stored value cards to bank accounts and investments accounts they controlled.

It is alleged that since 2021, Kapoor and Lillaney used the PII of approximately 3,000 identity theft victims to open FanDuel and other online gambling accounts, and generated approximately $3 million in profits during the scheme.