A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/nyregion/09fraud.html?_r=3

That was only the beginning. Over time, prosecutors said, Mr. Bedi told Mr. Davidson about an elaborate international conspiracy that had attacked Mr. Davidson’s computer and was threatening Mr. Davidson and his family. The conspiracy allegedly involved a mysterious hard drive in a remote village of Honduras and a plot to infiltrate the United States government by Polish priests linked to Opus Dei. Mr. Bedi persuaded Mr. Davidson to pay the computer shop not only for data retrieval, but for personal protection, the authorities said.

It was, of course, a fraud, officials said. For more than six years, the computer shop, Datalink Computer Products, regularly charged Mr. Davidson’s credit card accounts. The charges totaled more than $6 million, according to the office of the Westchester County district attorney, Janet DiFiore. It took months for investigators with the police in Harrison, N.Y., and other agencies to unravel the many twists and turns of the case.

Anxiously awaiting confirmation that this is in fact a The Onion story that got picked up by the major news outlets.