Inmate ran $11 million ‘elaborate fraud’ scheme from his Georgia prison cell, feds say
More than 6,000 American Gold Eagle coins.
A chartered jet.
Private security detail.
And a 6-bedroom mansion in Buckhead, Georgia.
That’s what 29-year-old Arthur Cofield managed to finagle from the confines of his cell at a Georgia correctional facility with nothing but a burner phone and two contacts on the outside, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said in a news release.
Now he faces prison — again.
Cofield was indicted Thursday, along with 63-year-old Eldridge Bennett and 25-year-old Eliayah Bennett, on charges of conspiring to commit bank fraud and money laundering, according to prosecutors.
“This elaborate fraud scheme is truly shocking in its scope and nature,” Tommy D. Coke, Inspector in Charge of the Atlanta Division, said in the release.
Cofield has been in prison in Butts County, Georgia, since 2008 for armed robbery, according to the Department of Corrections. He’s serving a 14-year sentence and is currently under indictment in another county for attempted murder, prosecutors said.
Corrections records show Cofield was scheduled to be released in October 2021 — that is until he got his hands on a contraband cell phone and the identity of an unwitting victim, prosecutors said.
The 29-year-old is accused of using the phone in June to get “multiple means of identification” for an unnamed person identified in court filings only as “S.K.,” including the person’s Charles Schwab bank account. He then impersonated S.K. during a phone call with the bank’s customer service representative to ask about opening a checking account, the release states.
When the representative reportedly told Cofield he needed a form of ID and utility bill to verify the account, prosecutors said Cofield had one of his alleged co-conspirators text him a picture of S.K.’s driver’s license as well as a water and power bill from Los Angeles.
The alleged scheme worked, and on June 8, Cofield negotiated with a precious metals dealer in Idaho to purchase 6,107 American Gold Eagle one-ounce coins for nearly $11 million, according to the release. Around the same time, prosecutors said Cofield and Eliayah Bennett contacted Charles Schwab about making an $11 million wire transfer from S.K.’s bank account.
Within five days, Cofield reportedly procured a private security company to escort the gold coins from Idaho to Atlanta on a chartered private jet. Eldridge Bennett then met the security team at the Atlanta Signature Airport on June 16 with a false form of identification, the release states.
The alleged fraud continued into July, when Cofield put an offer on a 6-bedroom house for $4.4 million in West Paces Ferry, a neighborhood in Atlanta’s ritzy community of Buckhead, prosecutors said. Eldridge and Eliayah Bennett reportedly provided the homeowner with a $720,000 down payment in cash, and Eldridge Bennett handed over the remaining $3.7 million at closing on Sept. 1, according to the release.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the trio got caught, but the Bennetts were arraigned before a magistrate judge on Thursday. Prosecutors said Cofield will be “arraigned at a later date upon production from the Georgia Department of Corrections.”
