ARIN Wins Important Legal Case and Precedent Against Fraud [Archived]

OUT OF DATE?

Here in the Vault, information is published in its final form and then not changed or updated. As a result, some content, specifically links to other pages and other references, may be out-of-date or no longer available.

Press Release

13 May 2019

Contact:
Abigail Major
+1.202.756.8140
[email protected]

ARIN Wins Important Legal Case and Precedent Against Fraud

Fraudulently obtained IP addresses uncovered and revoked -

Centreville, VA - May 13, 2019 - The American Registry for Internet Numbers, Ltd. (ARIN)defeated an elaborate multi-year scheme to defraud the Internet community of approximately 735,000 IPv4 addresses, has successfully required the return of all the addresses, and stopped the defrauding party from continuing their scheme. The emergent IPv4 address transfer market and increasing demand have resulted in more attempts to fraudulently obtain IPv4 addresses from ARIN, the nonprofit member-based organization responsible for distributing Internet number resources in the US, Canada, and parts of the Caribbean.

“Fraud will not be tolerated. The vast majority of organizations obtain their address space from ARIN in good faith according to the policies set out by the community. However, ARIN detected fraud as a result of internal due diligence processes, and took action to respond in this particularly egregious case,” said John Curran, ARIN President and CEO. “We are stepping up our efforts to actively investigate suspected cases of fraud against ARIN and will revoke resources and report unlawful activity to law enforcement whenever appropriate.”

In the first arbitration ever brought under an ARIN Registration Services Agreement, and related proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, ARIN was able to prove an intricate scheme to fraudulently obtain resources had occurred which included many falsely notarized officer attestations sent to ARIN. A company in South Carolina obtained and utilized 11 shelf companies across the United States, and intentionally created false aliases purporting to be officers of those companies, to induce ARIN into issuing the fraudulently sought IPv4 resources and approving related transfers and reassignments of these addresses. The defrauding party was monetizing the assets obtained in the transfer market, and obtained resources under ARIN’s waiting list process. On May 1, 2019, ARIN obtained a final and very favorable arbitration award which included revocation of all resources issued pursuant to fraud and $350,000 to ARIN for its legal fees. See: https://www.arin.net/vault/about_us/corp_docs/20190506_arbitration_award_and_order.pdf

ARIN will continue to carefully review all requests for resources and address transfers. ARIN takes the responsibility of protecting the community’s number resources and upholding community-developed policy very seriously.

For more information on how ARIN takes a hard line on fraud, read about it on ARIN’s blog TeamARIN.net. See: https://teamarin.net/2019/05/13/taking-a-hard-line-on-fraud/

About the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

ARIN is the nonprofit corporation that manages the distribution of Internet number resources – IPv4, IPv6, and Autonomous System numbers – in many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands, Canada, and the United States. Organizations that need IP address space and ASNs can request them directly from ARIN. More information about ARIN services, IPv6, and more is available at https://www.arin.net and https://teamarin.net/get6/