Investigators say bogus Shakira concert was just the tip of the iceberg

PORTLAND, Ore. - The man believed to be at the center of a ticket scam involving a phony Shakira concert was up to a lot more than just promoting a bogus concert, according to investigators who are looking into his past.

Police began investigating 35-year-old Nguyen Nguyen last year after they got word that a three-day event that was supposed to culminate with a concert starring Grammy winner Shakira was a fake. Tickets to the bogus concert were being sold for as much as $230 each.



According to Detective Yvette Shepard with FITE, a special fraud and financial crime unit, the fake concert posters, bogus checks and Web sites used by Nguyen to promote that concert were just the tip of the iceberg. She said they were part of a grander scheme to sell phony stocks, obtain properties, get money and steal the identities of dozens of people.

"There are going to be several charges pending," said Shepard. "One, mainly, is going to be identity theft and then we are going to look at possibly some computer crimes."

Shephard said documents already uncovered point to fraud, securities fraud, forgery and identity theft. She said it looks like Nguyen made off with at least $200,000 in the past year.

Computers seized from Nguyen's home are waiting in a backlog of evidence from other cases at a forensic lab and Shephard said she expects to find much more once those hard drives are looked at.

"Personal information as far as addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers on people that he could use later on to open credit cards in their names or open accounts in their names," she said.

Shephard said Nguyen's wife, Olga Antropova, who has said all along that she did not know what her husband was up to, really was a victim and is innocent. Shephard said Nguyen used Antropova to get to people in her community of salsa dancers so he could widen his web of victims even further. Antropova said all of the attention from this story has made it difficult for her to find work because no one feels they can trust her.

Nguyen, meanwhile, is in the King County Jail where he faces numerous identity theft charges unrelated to the concert scheme or the ongoing investigation that Shephard is working on.