Former Quintillion CEO busted on wire fraud

NOME -- Five years ago, Nome Internet users began to look forward to affordable and swift service through Quintillion, a company that would attach spurs to six communities connecting them to a submarine fiber optic cable from Japan to England, routed along Alaska’s northern coastline to serve Nome, Kotzebue, Utqiagvik (Barrow), Wainwright, Prudoe Bay, Point Hope and Shemya.

Quintillion would give the villages access to broadband speeds of 100 Gigabits per second, according to its claims, in contrast with the existing Nome and Barrow speeds of 0.006 Gigabits per minute. Nome folks cited examples of friends in the Lower 48 who paid $50 per month for unlimited broadband use, and looked forward to downloading movies and documentaries in a “whoosh” without triggering an 80-percent-monthly-use warning.

So far, Nome Internet surfers have not enjoyed the fruits of Quintillion’s promises in their households; however, the Port of Nome has benefited from hosting cable-laying vessels to the tune of around $270,000 in user fees for a variety of vessel services over summer seasons 2016 and 2017, according to Joy Baker, port director.

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Former Quintillion CEO Elizabeth Pierce, in meeting with locals, told them that Quintillion would be a middle provider, wholesaling broadband to any interested ISP. If the providers did not pass on the savings to households and businesses, Nome residents would see Quintillion vehicles rolling up and down streets with the company delivering service directly, Pierce vowed.

On April 12, the federal Dept. of Justice announced Pierce’s arrest in New York City on a charge of wire fraud, connected to perpetrating a multimillion dollar investment scheme. Between May 2015 and July 2017, Pierce had tricked two New York firms into investing over $250 million in Quintillion’s fiber optic project by luring them with sizable fake investment contracts that she had forged, according to the unsealed complaint. She has been charged on one count of wire fraud in the case and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, if convicted.

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