JACKSON, Miss. – A New Jersey man has been sentenced to federal prison for conspiracy to commit mail fraud in Mississippi.
The case against James Johnson, 61, was handled by Meridian Police and focused on a Nigerian run fraud operation that relied on Craigslist postings.
As part of the scheme, hundreds of USPS Express mail parcels containing faked postage, USPS money orders and cashier checks were either mailed or shipped. Police said Johnson printed the counterfeit postage, money orders and checks, mailed them, received money from the victims and forwarded the money to his partners in Nigeria via Western Union. An investigation uncovered nearly 600 wire transactions that took from victims more than $534,600.
Johnson plead guilty in May. He was sentenced Wednesday to seven years and two months in prison that will be followed by three years of supervised release. He must also payback more than $107,000.
