IP address fraud gets Micfo boss a five-year sentence

US cloud company owner Amir Golestan has received a five-year prison sentence over a scheme to fraudulently obtain scarce IPv4 addresses.

Golestan was charged in 2019, after using shelf companies to obtain address allocations from the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN).

He then resold the addresses, often to spammers, through the front companies, which he described as “channel partners”.

ARIN launched an action against Golestan and Micfo in 2018 and had some addresses returned in private arbitration.

However, the case also attracted the attention of the FBI, who charged Golestan with 20 counts of wire fraud. 

He was convicted after a 2021 guilty plea, and in September, received his sentence of five years, three of them in prison followed by two years of court-ordered supervision. He was also ordered to pay ARIN US$76,978 ($121,022) in restitution.

According to the US Department of Justice, Golestan “made over US$3 million” selling the IPv4 addresses.

In an announcement, ARIN said the stiff sentence resulted from the elaborate nature of Golestan’s fraud, and “the lengths he went to conceal the truth behind his companies, including trying to intimidate his employees and other witnesses.”

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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