How Four Brothers Allegedly Fleeced $19 Million From Amazon
Over the course of two years, four brothers in New York allegedly swindled Amazon out of at least $19 million using thousands of $94 toothbrushes and other expensive goods, according to a Department of Justice indictment unsealed Wednesday. Federal prosecutors accused Yoel Abraham, Heshl Abraham, Zishe Abraham, and Shmuel Abraham of invoicing Amazon for a large number of products the company never ordered. The defendants allegedly discussed their gimmick openly in a family WhatsApp group. In one message from May 2018, the indictment says, Yoel wrote that he was “so in the mood to fuck Amazon.”
All four brothers, who were arrested Wednesday, are accused of using wholesale businesses they opened to engage in a scam called “overshipping.” It works by intentionally sending a company more goods than it ordered and billing for it. On Amazon, every product is given a unique identifier, a string of numbers called an Amazon Standard Identification Number. They are part of an item’s listing in Amazon’s catalog. Vendors have the ability to change listings, to make sure things like product descriptions are accurate.
According to the indictment, the brothers swapped ASINs for items Amazon ordered to send large quantities of different goods instead. In one instance, Amazon ordered 12 canisters of disinfectant spray costing $94.03. The defendants allegedly shipped 7,000 toothbrushes costing $94.03 each, using the code for the disinfectant spray, and later billed Amazon for over $650,000.
