Castle Peak
In his heyday, Tucker ran a software company called eData Solutions, a one-stop shop for anyone who wanted to get into the payday-loan business. His company didn’t make loans, but it took applications and sold those to his payday-lender clients. This gave him access to huge amounts of personal information.
After the Justice Department cracked down on payday lending and many of his clients went out of business, Tucker retained that data and sold it to multiple debt brokers in 2014 and 2015, according to the indictment.
In one instance in 2015, Tucker allegedly sold a spreadsheet of made-up debts to a broker who in turn sold them to a collector who used them to file claims in bankruptcy court. Tucker invented a fake payday-loan company called Castle Peak and wrote in that each person owed $390. When a bankruptcy judge raised questions and Tucker was called to testify, he lied and claimed the loans were valid, prosecutors said.
The case is U.S. v. Tucker, 18-cr-153, U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri (Kansas City).
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.