UCLA grad arrested for alleged role in multi-million dollar text messaging scheme

A Los Angeles man was arrested Monday in connection with an alleged scheme that defrauded mobile phone users out of tens of millions of dollars for unwanted text messages, officials said.

Erdolo Eromo is among six defendants charged in New York federal court with participating in an alleged scam in which victims were “auto-subscribed” to text messages containing horoscopes, celebrity gossip or trivia for $9.99 a month, prosecutors said.

Customers, who normally ignored or deleted the messages, did not notice the monthly charge on their bills, according to the indictment.

“We are disappointed in this decision by the U.S. Attorney’s office,” said Brian Sun, a lawyer for Eromo. “We obviously disagree with it.”

In 2013, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission settled related civil charges with one of the six men, Lin Miao, and several corporate entities, taking more than $10 million in assets including a Beverly Hills home and luxury cars, according to prosecutors.

Eromo faces charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering, officials said.

“Although the text messages were often trivial, what the defendants allegedly did was far from a joking matter,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in New York said in a statement. “Their criminal scheme allegedly fleeced hundreds of thousands of everyday customers from around the country out of millions of dollars.”

Eromo is described in an article on the Black Enterprise website as a UCLA graduate who is among “the country’s youngest leaders in the world of mobile technology.”

Mobile technology “can have an imprint on society that can last for generations,” Eromo is quoted as saying. “And it’s profitable.”

—City News Service