Aurora business owner indicted for forging massage therapy licenses, translating exams for...

[massage]

AURORA | A federal grand jury in Colorado last month indicted a former Aurora business owner and her associate on nearly 40 counts of wire fraud tied to a complex scheme that produced sham massage therapy licenses for Chinese nationals living in the state, according to the local U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Yongbo Shen, 48 and Marla Daniels, 50, are accused of coordinating for more than three years to help more than a dozen people obtain bogus massage therapy licenses in Colorado, namely by translating test questions and answers from a national massage licensing exam from English to Chinese.

“Such (packets) essentially functioned as an unauthorized question and answer key — a cheat sheet — for the examination,” according to a statement issued by the Colorado U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Shen, who has recently been living in Massachusetts, is originally from China and is fluent in Chinese, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Shen sold the translated exam — which is only officially given in English and Spanish — to the massage license applicants for a fee, according to an indictment filed May 23. Shen and Daniels then coordinated to create knockoff transcripts and diplomas from Daniels’ Aurora-based massage school, the Majestic Vocational Training Center, stating the applicants had completed the state-mandated 500 hours of training.

Established in 2006, Majestic Vocational Training Center has operated at 9635 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora, according to records filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. The business has been periodically delinquent for failing to file regular reports since 2014.

Shen, who has also used the first name Kevin, then remitted the forged application materials the state Department of Regulatory Affairs, which oversees a slew of vocational licenses, including those related to massage therapy, across Colorado.

The local grand jury indicted both Shen and Daniels on 36 counts of wire fraud, which mostly took the form of emails and other online communications sent between the applicants, the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards and DORA between Feb. 16, 2015 and March 3, 2018, according to the indictment.

Shen and Daniels are facing one additional count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Officials from FBI field offices in three states as well as local police departments in several front range municipalities, including the Aurora Police Department, investigated the case against Shen and Daniels.

Shen is scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Colorado on Thursday.

Daniels, who has recently been living in Oklahoma City, is scheduled to make her initial appearance in Colorado’s U.S. District Court on June 17.

If convicted, both Shen and Daniels could each be sentenced to serve up to 20 years in federal prison and pay substantial fines.

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