Justin Archuleta Confesses to Scamming Players Out Of $280,000
In what has become one of the stranger poker dramas of the year, Justin Archuleta started a thread on Two Plus Two last Thursday to confess to allegedly scamming 24 players out of nearly $280,000. On the surface, it appears to be a genuine confession, though not everybody is convinced of its authenticity.
The confession begins dramatically:
I, Justin Archuleta, out of sound mind, body, and soul admit to the theft of many poker players by using digital means of many scamming techniques: Keyloggers, Chase Quickpay Scam, Paypal Scam, DDOS internet interference, 3rd party scams, Chip Dumping, Credit Card Thefts, and Twoplustwo Account Breaching.
Many of these I commited [sic] myself, and some with the help of another individual who had connection to 2p2 accounts in which I bought and gave a percentage of what I received from a scam. Largely because I had other techniques in the USA to retrieve funds to cash accounts. Also, my english was a little better to use social engineering.
He goes on to say that he has found god and that he is “in no way, shape, or form proud” of what he has done. The last scam, as best he can remember, was for $8,000 from “young_bluffkin” in August 2013.
Archuleta then lists all of the victims, along with the dollar amounts stolen and method by which he fleeced them:
Michael Goetsch $4000 / Poker Stars
Colin Procyshyn $500 / Win Cake
cbayly12 (2p2) $7000 / Lock Poker
macgyver 72 (2p2) $3000 / Lock Poker
Jkidd1084 (2p2) $2000 / Moneybookers
shhball47 (2p2) $1000 / Lock Poker
Brian Martinez $500 / Lock Poker
Tim Cramer $2000 / Lock Poker
cwazymonter (2p2) $500 /Netspend
solotalent2 $1000/ DDOS / Lock Poker
Lester Suppes $3,300 / WU / Sold stolen funds
ebet33 (my first scam) $1000/ Carbon Poker
young_bluffkin (2p2) $8000 / BOA
Trevor Pope $1500 / traded stolen funds
H3is3NB3RG (Party Poker) $10,000 / Party Poker
Missy1950 $1400 / Poker Book
LovePuddle $2000 / Lock Poker
Die_In_Fire $5000 / Juicy Stakes
heretokillit1 $2000 / Lock Poker
Sean Anthony $70,000 / Lock Poker $4000 /DDOS
Micah Smith $100,000 / Lock Poker $40,000 / Winners Poker
MrGoomba (Lock) $4100 / Lock Poker $3000 DDOS
Tobystevens0 $200/ Carbon Poker
AndrewStHilaire $1,800 (traded stolen funds)
He also says that he compromised the following Two Plus Two accounts as a means of gaining the trust of some of his victims: PaperEmpire, Surfdoc, Zamees, babar86, gimmetheloot, and aba20.
To his victims he offered this rambling apology:
I am very sorry for what I did, what hurts me the most was that some of this money was saved for newborn childs and I took it away from you unexpectedly. Honestly, I know what it’s like, I’ve been burned a lot. But I FORGIVE all who trespassed against me. And hope you forgive me as well. Deep in my Heart I know what is right and am doing what is right. I promise to do my best to repay, I just got a new job and have a side business as well refinishing furniture and airbrushing. I also want to have one of the largest greenhouse clusters in the world (but don’t tell anyone shhh)…I hope to expand the ventures and do what is right by law as well. Because I had other plans to repay which was a grey area in the law and realized finally it’s not right and very dangerous. I gave that up.
Right off the bat, people questioned Archuleta’s intelligence for posting about his crimes in such detail, as if he wants the police to come knocking on his door. After all, if he really wants to pay everybody back, sitting in a prison cell is going to hinder that effort. He also claims to have a job picking fruit and refinishing furniture, giving him the ability to pay back $20 per month to each victim. Then there is the talk of him trying to develop a marijuana growing business, complete with the search for $10,000 in outside investment, talk which has been met with nothing but ridicule from the posters in the thread. His ability to pay anyone back based on what he says his income stream is is dubious at best.
Archuleta’s side of the conversation over the past week has been highlighted with talk of religion, things such as his knowledge that god has forgiven him. Some contributors to the thread have been turned off by this, others are nervous that he thinks he can just write off the debts because of forgiveness, while still others feel that all his odd dialogue is just a way to setup new scams (people might believe he is being genuine, let their guard down, and get their names added to the victim list). He even offered to make direct transfers into his victims’ bank accounts, something that there is virtually no way anybody would do. YES, LET ME GIVE A KNOWN THIEF AND SCAMMER MY BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION. WHAT COULD GO WRONG? 
Archuleta seems to have all the right answers as far as proving he is the real scammer. He knows all of the details of the thefts and he appears to have given a few personal details that prove his identity. He posted a picture of himself in the thread, but its authenticity is up in the air. One theory, though, has been floated that the originator of the thread, the poster of the confession, might be Archuleta. Again, while just a theory, it has been suggested that the poster could be Archuleta’s accomplice, miffed at him for whatever reason, and posting everything in an attempt to get Archuleta in trouble with the law. One reason this possibility was brought up was because it seems way too bizarre that someone would lay everything out there in public and risk arrest while at the same time not simply going to the police to confess. Archuleta, based on what he has said, has life plans that do not involve incarceration, but at the same time said that if his fate was to be behind bars, so be it. A public confession seems counterproductive to both one’s desire to be free and desire to pay everyone back.
The simple answer to all this that the original poster is Archuleta and while he sounds a bit out there mentally, he is telling the truth. Either way, though, it has been a weird, weird week in that thread.
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