Virginia Man Convicted in Bank Fraud Scheme
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY)—A federal jury has convicted Dion Lamont Camp, 40, of 19 charges including bank fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and false representation of a social security number. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced the verdict Friday.
From 2019 through 2022, Camp orchestrated a scheme that involved defrauding both women and financial institutions. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Camp would establish romantic relationships with women, leveraging those connections to obtain fraudulent loans and credit cards.
Camp would often present the women with fake tax documents, claiming an IRS freeze on his accounts, subsequently promising to repay them when the situation was resolved.
Fraudulent Loan Scheme
Camp’s elaborate fraud included six fraudulent loans from a national credit union for vehicles. Some cars listed as collateral were never purchased, and others were double-financed, meaning Camp secured funding from both the credit union and dealerships for the same vehicle. This allowed him to obtain the credit union loan proceeds and the cars.
Camp opened shell businesses with names similar to existing used car dealerships in the Hampton Roads area. He persuaded two women, identified as Jane Doe (JD) 2 and JD5, to open corresponding business bank accounts. Then, he convinced these women, along with four others (JD3, JD4, JD6, and JD7), to apply for automobile loans in their names at the credit union, claiming he couldn’t get loans himself.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that after the credit union approved the loan applications, checks were given to the women for the dealerships. They then provided the checks to Camp. Camp would use a call spoofing service to impersonate employees at legitimate dealerships and call the credit union, pretending the loans were for various luxury vehicles. He provided VINs to the credit union and obtained codes needed to release the checks, which were then funneled through the business accounts.
JD2 and JD5 withdrew loan proceeds and gave the money to Camp. The four cars that were never purchased were located across the country and never at the businesses in Hampton Roads, depriving the credit union of the collateral to secure the loans.
Additionally, Camp persuaded JD4 and JD7, who had already secured loan checks, to purchase two luxury vehicles from a northern Virginia dealership using in-house financing for over $100,000. In a separate instance, Camp cashed the credit union checks, and, again, the credit union was deprived of the cars as collateral for the loans.
For two of these fraudulent loans, Camp convinced the women to trade in their vehicles to help fund the loans and then sold their cars at local dealerships, keeping the proceeds.
Additional Charges
Camp was also found guilty for other fraudulent actions. He used false income information to obtain financing for a vehicle purchased in his name from CarMax, claiming he had been a UPS employee for over a decade. Even after his arrest, he attempted to convince the finance company to give him a payment extension on the loan by pretending he was still employed at UPS.
In 2019, Camp provided JD8 and JD11 with fraudulent pay stubs showing inflated income to support personal loan applications. Both women provided the loan proceeds to Camp, who promised to repay them. Furthermore, Camp used JD3’s personal information without her knowledge to get an American Express credit card and obtained supplemental American Express credit cards from the accounts of JD5, JD3, and JD10 using the Social Security number of an individual identified as R.D. R.D. testified that he has never met Camp.
Camp’s final conviction was for a property rental application in Virginia Beach, where he used a false Social Security number, a fake credit report, and a false IRS business tax filing.
Camp faces a minimum of two years and up to 392 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for September 12.
