Bronx woman used fake New Jersey licenses to steal replacement iPhones

A woman from the Bronx, New York is heading to prison for more than a year after she hauled in $200,000 worth of iPhones.

The elaborate scheme of 39-year old Rosanna Lucrecia Cruel Blanco also had New Jersey ties, which included when she and her conspirators would use fake New Jersey licenses and addresses as part of filing claims, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger sid.

Blanco and her conspirators began executing their plan to get replacement cell phones from an insurance company and in doing so, would assume alternate identities of actual wireless customers and then file false claims under the company's handset insurance program, citing damage, theft or loss, prosecutors said.

Sellinger said that the scheme ran from December 2017 to January 2020.

Most of what they stole were iPhones worth about $700 to $1,000 each, according to Sellinger.

As part of their scheme, Blanco and crew also provided the company with fake identification using a phony New York or New Jersey driver’s license that included the name of the actual customer, and then gave the company shipping contact names and addresses where they wanted the iPhones and accessories to go to, which were not the same as the actual person they were pretending to be.

Among the shipping addresses they submitted to the company, most are in New York in the Bronx, Yonkers, White Plains, Manhattan, but also several undisclosed locations in New Jersey.

The company then shipped the replacement cell phones through UPS or FedEx to the names and addresses provided and then Blanco and her conspirators picked them up, prosecutors said.

In addition to her time in prison, Blanco has been sentenced to three years of supervised release and must pay restitution and forfeiture of $246,025.