KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — 37-year-old Geoffrey Mark Hays Talsma was to 16 years’ imprisonment for mail fraud and aggravated identity theft on Wednesday, July 27.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Michigan in Grand Rapids reported that Talsma was ordered to pay over $3.2 million in restitution to Amazon.
According to court documents, Talsma defrauded Amazon by using the internet to create numerous Amazon accounts and email accounts to rent textbooks and sell the textbooks for a profit when he should have returned the textbooks or paid the agreed upon buy-out price.
As time went on, Talsma recruited others to accept shipments of stolen textbooks at their homes so that Amazon would not detect a pattern of large volumes of books going to locations associated with him.
The defendant the shared the profits of the scheme with these individuals after he sold the textbooks over the internet and at various bookstores, including one in Kalamazoo.
In total, the fraud scheme caused losses to Amazon well in excess of $3 million.
Talsma is the last of four defendants to be sentenced for their roles in the mail fraud scheme.
The other individuals previously sentenced include:
• Lovedeep Singh Dhanoa, age 25, of Portage, Michigan – 15 months’ imprisonment
• Paul Steven Larson, age 32, of Kalamazoo, Michigan – 6 months’ imprisonment
• Gregory Mark Gleesing, age 44, of Portage, Michigan – 3 years’ probation, including 4
months’ home detention.
The offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kalamazoo, and the United States Postal Inspection Service, Grand Rapids, investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald M. Stella prosecuted the case. Amazon referred the matter to law enforcement and provided significant support to the investigation.
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