Burnsville Man Admits To Scamming California Manufacturer Out of $1.2M

MINNEAPOLIS — A Burnsville man has pleaded guilty to wire fraud after defrauding an electronics manufacturing business out of more than $1.2 million, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

On Friday, Thomas Thanh Pham, 53, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud before Judge Joan N. Ericksen in U.S. District Court.

Between 2019 and 2020, Pham defrauded a California-based company of around $1.2 million, according to prosecutors.

As CEO of Minneapolis-based Enterprise Products, LLC, he falsely claimed to provide consulting and financial services to clients in engineering and manufacturing, presenting himself as a broker with connections to large companies, authorities said.

Pham told the company, referred to as Victim A, that he could arrange service agreements between Victim A and major electronics companies, according to prosecutors. Starting in June 2019, he pitched the idea of multi-million-dollar contracts, using fake documents like contracts and business proposals to back up his claims, authorities said.

Pham tricked Victim A into paying a "deposit bond" of $1.28 million and convinced them to enter into a fraudulent contract in September 2019, according to authorities. He later pitched other fake deals, claiming they involved even larger sums of money, prosecutors said.

To make it seem like he was fulfilling the contract, Pham sent Victim A about 20 electronic devices supposedly needing repairs, authorities said. However, these devices were actually stolen, according to prosecutors.

Pham also misused Victim A’s funds for personal expenses, despite promising to keep the money in a refundable escrow account, authorities said.