Though he shares a name with a well known conservative American author, his legacy in Buenos Aires is more like that of English convict of the same name.
In another tale of a foreign convict who escaped to Argentina, William Paul Buckley alias, Michael Nemetski (DOB: 5/10/1984), an American who ripped off dozens of foreigners and Argentines while in the country, is now on a ten-year economic probation in the U.S. after serving 90 days in jail earlier this year.
The South American portion of the crime spree began in January 2011, when Buckley, facing fraud charges in Colorado, fled to Argentina, where he scammed people in both Buenos Aires and Cordoba with a sham telephone customer support business, Call South. Expats who were hired to work for him in a Puerto Madero office claim to have never haven gotten paid for their work and clients in the U.S. were left similarly high and dry.
To get the scam going, the following email was sent out soliciting employees for a new business. Milosh Zorica, a technology professional who wrote a freelance article on finding tech jobs in Buenos Aires for this website, was the sender of that email.
As his scheme started to unravel, with clients not getting the services requested and employees not getting paid, he resorted to stealing from a cash register in a hostel at least once, and skipped out on paying bills for his office rental space, restaurants and bars in both cities.
In the long and popular thread on BAExpats he is colorfully described by those scammed as ‘having a head that looks like a penis’ and was reported to appear at work, ‘reeking of vodka.’
Zorica, for his part, claims to have not been in on the scam. Once the swindle was revealed, Zorica responded to an email from Wander Argentina saying, “The partner has turned a fugitive scammer…that’s what really sucks here…{there are} a bunch of shady types.”
Crime Across Continents
Before fleeing to Argentina, Buckley had another scam business called ‘The Lease Brokers,’ based out of a storefront on 2870 S. Broadway in Englewood, CO.
There, in late 2010 he convinced a dozen car owners, contacted via Ebay, to hand over their cars, in exchange for agreeing to take over loan payments. Buckley did not honor the payments and would sometimes resell the vehicles without delivering the title — and in some cases — the cars themselves.
In Colorado, Buckley resided at 2200 Market St in the trendy LoDo sector of Denver. He funneled his ill-gotten gains into a Mexican bank account, allowing him to elude the law.
Although the Colorado Attorney General took full credit for tracking him down, it was a group of astute foreigners in Argentina who put together the pieces and cornered Buckley, informing the authorities of his whereabouts as well as the money transfer service Xoom, making it difficult for him to receive money from abroad.
He was indicted in early 2012. He returned from Argentina to Colorado in October of 2012 to face his charges.
You can see the whole indictment here.
Although the Colorado Attorney General originally stated he could face up to 12 years in jail and $750,000 in fines, it appears he got off with a lighter sentence than many of those scammed in Argentina would have hoped.
After pleading guilty to Class Three Felony Theft, the final sentence, handed out in April of this year, was 90 days in Arapahoe County jail and 10 years probation. He was also ordered to pay $220,000 in restitution, $50,000 of which has already been paid.
He has not faced any charges for his crime spree in Argentina.
