Cuong Cao Calvin Dang Sentenced For Role In $37M Cisco Fraud And Related Crimes

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/cuong-cao-calvin-dang-sentenced-7-years-prison-role-37m-cisco-fraud-and-related-crimes

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Northern District of California

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 31, 2017

Cuong Cao “Calvin” Dang Sentenced To 7 ½ Years In Prison For Role In $37M Cisco Fraud And Related Crimes

San Jose Resident Bought and Sold Equipment Stolen from Cisco and Subsequently Engaged in Obstruction of Justice, Blackmail, and Contempt of Court

SAN JOSE – Cuong Cao “Calvin” Dang was sentenced to 90 months in prison for his role in a scheme to sell products stolen from Cisco Systems by its employees, announced United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch, and Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, Special Agent in Charge Michael T. Batdorf. The sentence was handed down today in San Jose by the Honorable Edward J. Davila, U.S. District Judge, following the entry of two guilty plea agreements. In the first plea agreement, Dang admitted to running a business that bought and sold merchandise stolen from Cisco. In the second plea agreement, Dang admitted to blackmailing a person by threatening to tell the government about the person’s involvement with the fraud scheme.

According to the plea agreement, Dang, 47, of San Jose, Calif., owned and operated Network Genesis, based in San Jose, from approximately January 2006 until January 23, 2013. Dang admitted to having a small network of Cisco employees who delivered stolen Cisco merchandise to Network Genesis for resale to customers both in and outside California. Dang admitted that, to cover his tracks, he changed the serial numbers on the stolen merchandise and created fraudulent “test sheets” to give to customers. (A test sheet shows the diagnostic information, including the serial number, for a particular part.) Dang also admitted using nominees to launder the illicit proceeds, enabling him to obtain large amounts of cash without having the money go through bank accounts associated with him or his businesses.

On October 30, 2013, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment in which Dang and seven other defendants were charged with various offenses related to Dang’s scheme. For his part, Dang was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349; six substantive mail fraud counts, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341; two counts of engaging in financial transactions (money laundering) using criminally derived proceeds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957; and six counts of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(a)(1)(A)(i) and (a)(1)(B)(i).

On December 11, 2015, Dang entered into the first of two plea agreements. In this plea agreement, Dang pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, one count of mail fraud, one count of money laundering, and one count of money laundering of criminally derived proceeds. Dang admitted that Network Genesis’s business was “overwhelmingly that of buying and selling merchandise stolen from Cisco” by its employees. Dang also admitted that from January 2006 until Network Genesis was raided by federal law enforcement officers in January 2013, sales revenues totaled approximately $37,000,000. Despite entering into this plea agreement and admitting this criminal conduct, Dang did not cease all of his criminal activity.
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