Virginia Man Convicted on Multiple Fraud Charges
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – A federal jury found Dion Lamont Camp, a 40-year-old Virginia Beach man, guilty on 19 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and making a false representation of a social security number. The verdict, announced Friday, concludes a trial that exposed a wide-ranging scheme to defraud both women and financial institutions.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Camp spent years manipulating women into romantic relationships and then exploiting those connections to secure fraudulent loans and credit cards. He would present the women with fabricated tax documents, claiming the IRS had frozen his accounts and promising to repay the money.
From 2020 to 2022, Camp orchestrated six fraudulent loans from a national credit union for vehicles. Some of these cars were never actually purchased, a practice known as ghost purchasing. Others were double-financed, meaning Camp obtained financing from both the credit union and the car dealership for the same vehicle, gaining both the loan proceeds and the car itself.
During the trial, prosecutors revealed that Camp established shell businesses with names that closely resembled those of existing used car dealerships in Hampton Roads. He then convinced two women, identified as Jane Doe (JD) 2 and JD5, to open corresponding business bank accounts. Camp subsequently persuaded these women, along with JD3, JD4, JD6, and JD7, to apply for automobile loans in their names at the credit union, claiming he couldn’t get a loan himself because of his “frozen” accounts and vowing to repay them.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office detailed how, after the credit union approved the loan applications and issued checks to the women for the dealerships, the women would then give the checks to Camp. He would then use a call spoofing service to impersonate employees of legitimate car dealerships and contact the credit union. He would provide VINs for luxury vehicles and obtain the codes to release the check, which he would funnel through the business accounts. JD2 and JD5 withdrew the loan proceeds and gave them to Camp. The four ghost-purchased vehicles were located across the country, never at the businesses in Hampton Roads. Camp, or the women, never purchased them with the credit union checks. This deprived the credit union of the secured collateral.
Camp also persuaded JD4 and JD7, who had already received loan checks from the credit union, to purchase two additional luxury vehicles from a dealership in northern Virginia, using in-house financing for over $100,000. Camp again cashed the credit union checks, and the credit union was again deprived of its potential vehicle collateral, as the cars were double-financed.
In two instances of fraudulent loans, Camp not only secured the money from the auto loan checks but also convinced the women to trade in their existing vehicles. He then sold their cars at local dealerships and kept the profits.
Further demonstrating his scheme, Camp purchased a car in his name from CarMax as a repayment to a family friend who had given him money years earlier. He used false information to obtain financing, claiming to have been a UPS employee for more than a decade. After Camp was arrested and incarcerated at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail, this family friend feared the BMW would be repossessed. On a recorded jail call, Camp, using another inmate’s account, contacted the finance company. He falsely claimed to still be employed at UPS and requested a payment extension.
According to the U.S. Attorney, Camp also defrauded banks for personal loans. In 2019, he provided JD8 and JD11 with fabricated pay stubs with inflated income, supporting applications to another local credit union. Both women gave the loan proceeds to Camp, who again promised repayment.
Additionally, Camp used JD3’s personal information, without her knowledge, to obtain an American Express credit card. He also 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 at Camp’s trial that he has never met or had any relationship with Camp.
The final charge of which Camp was convicted involved a fraudulent application for a property rental in Virginia Beach. In this application, Camp used a false Social Security number, a fake credit report with a highly inflated credit score, and a false IRS business tax filing. The tax filing showed his alleged house-flipping business, Camp Investments LLC, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. However, evidence revealed that Camp’s business bank account rarely had any significant balance and that he never filed taxes for Camp Investments.
Prosecutors presented evidence during the trial indicating that Camp defrauded women and banks of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He faces a minimum of two years and a potential maximum sentence of 392 years. Camp is scheduled to be sentenced on September 12.
