Investor sentenced to jail for tax fraud — Domain name

Australian man was active on domain name forums.

A domain name investor who was active on various domain name forums has been sentenced to jail for defrauding Australian tax authorities.

Michael Purse spent tens of thousands of dollars buying expired domain names, District Court Judge Steven Millsteed stated. The judge stated Purse got $130,134 in illegal refunds for a number of businesses he set up to buy the domains, notes PerthNow.

As stated by the publication, the judge stated:

Purse had developed an algorithm which alerted him when the licences of popular domain names were regarding to expire — allowing him to buy potentially profitable names as soon as they came on the market.

…Judge Millsteed stated Purse, who was described as a man of above average intelligence by a psychologist note tendered to the court, had made $25-35,000 from this process but he became greedy and wanted more.

Purse was apparently active on domain name forums prior to being caught. He was an active seller on DNForum and had a profile at NamePros. He also sold domain names through his site F5Domains.