Roger Davidson
Posted on 11/10/2010 9:03:46 PM PST by iowamark
A New York couple have been charged with defrauding a wealthy musician to the tune of $20 million (£12.3 million) after he innocently visited their computer servicing company to have a virus removed from his laptop.
The hard-to-believe story started started in 2004 when moneyed pianist Roger Davidson asked Mount Kisco computer store owners Vickram Bedi, 36, and his Icelandic girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir, 39, to rid his computer of a virus.
On learning of Davidson's wealth, the pair are alleged to have concocted an elaborate social engineering scam that defrauded him of somewhere between the $6 million the police have been able to confirm with an upper figure of as much as $20 million.
Exactly how they executed the fraud reads like something out of an implausible movie plot.
According to police, the pair were able to convince Davidson that the virus was in fact a symptom of a much larger plot in which he was being menaced by government intelligence agencies, foreign nationals and even priests associated with Catholic organisation, Opus Dei.
So convinced was the victim he is said to have agreed to pay the pair $160,000 per month for 24-hour protection against the fictitious threats, payments which continued until recently.
As book readers will recall, Opus Dei were central to the fanciful plot of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, later made into a high-profile film.
"The suspects were isolating the victim and were basically trying to control every dollar that he had," said Police Chief Anthony Marraccini...
Unlikely frauds of this kind are not unheard of. Two years ago, a reverend in Oregon was warned to stop transferring money to Nigerian 419 scammers after giving them $400,000 in compulsively gullible acts.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
Roger Davidson
I would have done it for only $150,000 per month.
For an “Icelandic Girlfriend,” she sure looks like a “Helga”!
i dunno how rich folks can be so stupid
I wonder what stupid thing he did to get the virus in the first place... Sad. Someone buy him a Mac. And feel free to charge him several times its value for doing so ;-)
Gee—if he’d only had a Mac, this would never have happened.
/mark
What has he been up to?
hmm.. does Ivar have any other dottirs?
The guy is a musician. He doesn’t have to have any other sort of smarts to be a fine musician.
Likewise, how do stoopit people become so rich ?
Actually, it appears they delivered what they promised.
Reading the headline, I thought this was a case of stolen identity. Turns out it isn't. I was also wondering how a pianist could have $20m. It turns out he is an heir to an oil tycoon who also happens to be a pianist.
This was 2004 or 2005. The Bush derange syndrome was in its peak. I wouldn't be surprised if this guy was paranoid about Bush and believed that the Bush Administration was trying to get to him. He is a musician who promotes 'multicultural understanding', so no wonder he listened to some Indian guy and his Icelandic girlfriend about the dangers of Bush Administration and Catholic church.
He seemed to suffer from Bush Derange Syndrome. He believed that the Bush Administration hated him and Catholic Church--especially the Opus Dei--was trying to send a Polish priest to kill him.
Doesn’t sound like a crime to me. The man is still safe, so they must have kept their end of the bargain and protected him from all those dangerous people. LOL
“It’s immoral to let a sucker keep his money” - Canada Bill Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Bill_Jones
A check with Open Secrets shows he’s a (D) big time money giver too...:^)
Go Helga!!!
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