US authorities have sentenced Florida resident Mary Kathryn Marr, who had pleaded guilty in June 2021, to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering. Marr must pay a restitution of $14,511,754.05 to her victims and forfeit assets worth $1.5 million related to the proceeds of her crimes.
Marr and her conspirators ran a mass-marketing scam. Using high-pressure boiler-room sales tactics, they convinced their victims that they were investing their money in regulated financial products/markets. However, the investments were fake and the victims did not get anything back. Most of these victims were in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and countries in Asia. Marr laundered the proceeds of this international fraud with the help of several international boiler rooms.
The boiler room agents asked the victims to transfer their money to the bank accounts of US-based shell companies that Marr and co-conspirators operated. The conspirators then laundered the fraud proceeds through more bank accounts and transferred them overseas. Overall, Marr and her co-conspirators defrauded their victims of over $14.5 million during 2015-18.
Serbian authorities arrested Marr in 2018 after the US Department of Justice issued an INTERPOL Red Notice against her. In April 2019, she was extradited to the US.
Source: US Department of Justice