A Louisiana man has been charged with creating counterfeit coupons and selling them on the Silk Road underground websites, defrauding businesses of more than US$1 million, a court ruled last week. Prosecutors said Beau Wattigney, 30, of New Orleans, created coupons that resembled print-at-home coupons from vendors, which also contained fake logos. The coupons offered substantial discounts on some products.
He sold a coupon for a $50 Visa gift card, for 1 cent, according to the indictment.
Wattigney is alleged to have sold packages of coupons between May 2012 and last November on the Silk Road 1.0 and 2.0 websites, on sites that are now closed, but originally through them you could usually exchange illegal goods.
The coupons were sold by users with the aliases: GoldenLotus, PurpleLotus, MoxDiamond and NickMode.
Wattigney was charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit trademark infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
More than 50 businesses were targeted and could have suffered damages of at least $1 million dollars if these coupons had been purchased, according to the lawsuit against him. The coupons deceived the services that distribute these bulletins such as: Hopster, Coupons.com, SmartSource and RedPlum.
According to the claims, it made more than 2,000 sales and advertised one of the products as the «Original S.R. Exclusive Coupon Collection.» That package was sold for $54.44 dollars to some person in the Colombia region on Silk Road 1.0.
There is still a developed black market in counterfeit coupons, and it is easy to find other groups that participate in the same activity for which Wattigney is accused. A group called TeamLotus has a website that uses an address «.onion», which in turn uses the Tor network to make tracing its true IP address even more difficult.
TeamLotus offers packages of fake coupons that are arbitrarily organized into very broad product categories, such as, for example: baby essentials, breakfast and cereal, and cleaning supplies. The packages cost $35 but often provide discounts exceeding their value.
In an information page, TeamLotus refers to a person identified by the accusers as Wattigney, writing that: "Purple Lotus has long since retired and moved from coupon anarchy to a dedicated and fanatical personal mission. Purple Lotus must be the first to admit that the students have surpassed the teacher," it states. "That is why he could retire in peace, knowing that his baby would live on for years to come."
