Joel Zubaid, 55, of Riverside, CA, David Goran, 56, of Riverside, CA, Julian Rebiga, a/k/a “Iulian Rebiga,” 55, of Long Beach, CA, and Martin Mizrahi, a/k/a “Marty Mizrahi,” 51, of Las Vegas, Nevada, are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft.
Rebiga appeared December 8 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Zubaid and Goran appeared December 9 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, and Mizrahi appeared December 9 in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.
The defendants participated in at least two business email compromise schemes in which co-conspirators sent email messages to victims that fraudulently asked those victims to send money to bank accounts under the defendants’ control, according to court records. As a result, the victims of the business email compromise schemes sent wire transfers worth more than $5.4 million to the bank accounts identified by the scheme participants, the majority of which went to the Defendants’ bank accounts.
The defendants, knowing the money represented fraud proceeds, then transferred those fraud proceeds to other accounts, or converted it into cryptocurrency, in transactions designed to conceal and disguise their source, ownership, and control, according to court records. When banks froze or sought to recover some of the fraud proceeds, the defendants made multiple attempts to retain or recover control over the funds by lying to the banks about the purpose of the transfers.
In addition, during the same time period, the defendants participated in a scheme to fraudulently submit more than $3.8 million in charges using stolen credit card information, without the authorization or consent of the card holders, according to court records. The charges were conducted through point-of-sale credit card machines associated with companies controlled by Mizrahi and Rebiga.
“Joel Zubaid, David Goran, Julian Rebiga, and Martin Mizrahi worked together on multiple schemes that included fleecing legitimate businesses by using compromised email accounts,” said Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. “In tricking them into sending millions of dollars to the defendants’ own bank accounts and using stolen identities and credit card information, they were able to fraudulently charge millions of dollars through business that they controlled.”
“As we allege today, the defendants participated in several schemes designed to defraud multiple businesses of millions of dollars while also deliberately concealing the stolen proceeds of the frauds in a series of transactions,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Michael J. Driscoll said. “
If found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, they could face 30 years in prison; wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; bank fraud carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison; conspiracy to commit money laundering carries a maximum sentence of 20 years; money laundering carries up to 20 years in prison, and aggravated identity theft arries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison consecutive to any other prison terms imposed.