News Releases and Statements
News Releases and Statements
According to court documents, Jose Roman, 43, Marcos Valencia Jr, 32, Ezequil Castro, 37, and Juan Gonzalez, all of Kansas City, Kansas; Manuel Alvarez, 28, of Seneca, Manuel Faudoa, 23, of Dodge City and Gerardo Sierra-Martinez, 21, of Kansas City, Missouri, are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
William Eric Fulton, 59, of Agoura Hills, pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements.
Akolade Ojo, 31, of Owings Mills, received the 46-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release at the U.S. District Court in Baltimore on July 5. Ojo must also pay $1,320,186.19 in restitution.
On June 14, a judge sentenced Veronica Dittman, 28, of Tempe, to five years in prison for her role in operating multiple darknet pages selling illicit drugs with two previously sentenced co-conspirators. The sentence follows a multiagency investigation involving HSI Arizona.
Shakeeb Ahmed, 34, of New York, New York, is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The unsealed indictment charges Ahmed with wire fraud and money laundering in connection with his attack on a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.
Nine2Five LLC and its owner, Sebastian Guthery, pleaded guilty in federal court on July 10 to felony crimes related to the illegal importation of kratom, an opioid-like plant, and the subsequent laundering of proceeds from the sale of the illegally imported product.
Natalie Le Demola, 38, currently incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Corona, was sentenced by United States District Judge John F. Walter, who also ordered her to pay $933,181 in restitution.
Older Americans lose a staggering $2.9 million a year to a growing variety of financial scams. Baby boomers represent the largest and most affluent generation, and one in five victims of reported fraud are between 60 and 69 years old.
According to court documents, Emmanuel Samuel, 39, was part of a group of fraudsters who sent personalized letters to elderly victims in the United States, falsely claiming that they represented a bank in Spain.
Maria Mendoza-Mendoza aka La Guera made her initial court appearance June 23 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
Since 2017, these federal partners have focused on darknet drug vendors and cryptocurrency-enabled crimes. Ever-evolving technology has allowed drug traffickers and other criminal actors to expand into the digital world and use the darknet to engage in their illegal activity.
All four defendants — Willie Mitchell, Sean Swaringer, Kimberly Coleman and Jason Coleman — pleaded guilty to bank fraud.
Arman Grigoryan, 42, was sentenced late in the afternoon June 6 by U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee, who also ordered him to pay $2,880,259 in restitution.
In Arizona, law enforcement took approximately 52 disruption actions against those responsible for facilitating a range of fraud schemes, including romance and lottery schemes.
Dina Maldonado Morales, 42, and Laura Ballesteros Haby, 52, were arrested and charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud and aiding and abetting wire fraud.
According to court documents, Jerry Chucks Ozor, 43, and Iheanyichukwu Jonathan Abraham, 44, were part of a group of fraudsters who sent personalized letters to elderly victims in the United States.
Meshach Samuels, 26, of Placentia, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and two counts of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.
Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, 29, was extradited from Canada to the United States April 12 to face a federal indictment.
Nasser Salman, 60, was arraigned in federal court May 4, on charges that he fraudulently obtained more than $400,000 in COVID-relief loan funds on behalf of three companies.
On April 26, 2023, a federal grand jury in the Puerto Rico returned an indictment charging Shuyi Mo, a citizen and resident of the People’s Republic of China, with 31 counts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C., Section 1343; one count of a wire fraud conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C., Section 1349; and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C., Section 371.
Daniel Alan Lewis, 53, of Hemet, California, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. As part of his plea, Lewis further admitted that in November and December 2021, he passed numerous counterfeit savings bonds at banks in both the Houston and Brownsville areas.
HSI in partnership with ACAMS issued an alert today outlining anti-money laundering red flags and compliance guidance associated with so-called “pig-butchering,” a rising global fraud scheme that targets victims by earning their confidence over the course of weeks or months before soliciting money for fraudulent crypto-asset investments.
On April 24, Hilda Diana Guerra-Villarreal, 74; Raul Rene Villarreal, 51; and Alma Urania Garcia, 33, all of Zapata, pleaded guilty to conspiring to conduct and conducting illegal gambling in Webb and Zapata counties. Four others — Rodolfo Ricardo Villarreal Jr., 37; Juan Vasco, 52; Ruben Samuel Villarreal, 28; and Maria Mendieta, 42 — entered their pleas to the same charges in 2022. Rodolfo Villareal Jr., Vasco and Ruben Villareal are from Zapata, and Mendieta is from Bruni.
According to court documents, Claudia Patricia Díaz Guillen, 49, and her husband, Adrian José Velásquez, 43, accepted and laundered over $136 million in bribes from co-conspirator Raúl Gorrin Belisario, a Venezuelan billionaire businessman who owned Globovision news network.
DHS and ICE's HSI, alongside partners with the U.S. Departments of Justice, Commerce, Treasury, and State announced today several international actions against Nazem Ahmad, an individual sanctioned by the United States under the GTSR for his involvement with the terrorist organization Hizballah, as well as against several other individuals involved in Ahmad’s global criminal organization, that utilized a web of businesses to benefit Ahmad and helped him to continue to provide Hizballah access to U.S. and international financial markets.
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