Austin Couple Jerrod Lochmiller and Christina Linden Indicted Over Alleged $6 Million Fake-ID Website Fraud

Published Oct. 16, 2026. Case status is current as of that date.

An Austin couple—Jerrod Lochmiller and Christina Linden—were charged on Oct. 13, 2026, with running websites that purported to sell fake driver’s licenses and ID cards to customers who allegedly never received them, and with evading federal income taxes on more than $6 million, mostly in cryptocurrency, that they allegedly received from their fake-ID and SEO websites, the Justice Department announced [1].

Important: An indictment is an allegation. Lochmiller and Linden are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The Justice Department’s own release states that presumption explicitly [1].

How the alleged scheme worked

According to court documents and statements in court summarized by DOJ [1]:

1. Fake-ID storefronts. The defendants allegedly owned and operated several websites that advertised fraudulent identification documents, including driver’s licenses and identification cards.
2. SEO and review sites. They also allegedly ran SEO-service sites and created review websites that recommended their own fake-ID shops, hiring SEO help to boost search rankings.
3. Aliases and nominees. Sites were operated in the names of aliases and nominees to obscure ownership.
4. Crypto payments and layering. Customers allegedly paid primarily in cryptocurrency. The couple then moved coins through multiple addresses before converting them to dollars and depositing proceeds in bank accounts in their names—steps prosecutors cast as concealment of the income’s source.
5. No delivery. Clients who purchased the fake IDs allegedly did not receive them—turning the operation into a take-the-money online storefront fraud, not merely a counterfeit-document service.
6. Tax evasion. Between 2017 and 2024 they allegedly received over $6 million from the fake-ID and SEO sites, filed no federal income tax returns and failed to report the income to the IRS.

The people charged

Jerrod Lochmiller and Christina Linden (Austin, Texas) [1]

• Charges described: conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud; conspiracy to defraud the IRS; tax evasion; willfully failing to file a tax return.
• Statutory maximums (informational): up to 20 years for the wire-fraud conspiracy and wire-fraud charges; five years for conspiracy to defraud the IRS; six years for tax evasion; one year for willful failure to file—subject to the court’s eventual sentence if convicted.
• Investigation: IRS Criminal Investigation; prosecuted by the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division with the Western District of Texas.
• Plea / trial status: not stated in the charging announcement (status pending).

Red flags

• Websites selling “novelty” or “replica” driver’s licenses for real-world use—illegal, and often a pure payment scam.
• Review sites that only praise one cluster of ID vendors and share the same operators.
• Payment only in cryptocurrency with no verifiable business identity.
• Pressure to pay quickly for documents that “ships in days” with no trackable fulfillment.
• Any offer to buy a government ID online without visiting a government office.

What to do if you’re targeted

1. Do not buy fake IDs. Beyond the fraud risk, possessing or using counterfeit government ID is a crime.
2. If you already paid and received nothing, preserve wallet transaction IDs, screenshots and emails; report to the FBI at ic3.gov and the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
3. Ignore “refund agent” follow-ups that ask for more crypto to release a shipment—common secondary scams.
4. Tax tip: income from illegal activity is still taxable; failure to report can add separate charges, as alleged here.

Case status (as of Oct. 16, 2026)

Defendant	Court	Status as of Oct. 16, 2026	Source
Jerrod Lochmiller; Christina Linden	Federal (charges announced by DOJ National Fraud Enforcement Division / W.D. Tex. assistance)	Indicted Oct. 13, 2026, on wire-fraud and tax-related charges; presumed innocent; plea/trial status pending	[1]

An indictment is not evidence of guilt. Statuses can change.

Sources

1. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “Austin Couple Indicted for Running Fake ID Websites,” Oct. 13, 2026. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/austin-couple-indicted-running-fake-id-websites

---

Corrections and updates: If you are named in this article, or represent someone who is, and believe anything here is inaccurate or out of date (including a dismissal, acquittal, or change in case status), please contact us at editorandchief@scammers.com. We will review it and update the article promptly.