Information for Victims in Large Cases
United States v. Ravi Kumar Chermala
Former Kerry, Inc. Manager Ravi Chermala Pleads Guilty in Connection with Insanitary Plant Conditions Linked to 2018 Salmonella Poisoning Outbreak
United States v. Michael Malekzadeh and Bethany Mockerman
Malekzadeh started his business in 2013 by purchasing limited edition and collectible sneakers to resell online. Beginning as early as January 2020, Zadeh Kicks began offering preorders of sneakers before their public release dates, allowing Malekzadeh to collect money upfront before fulfilling orders. Malekzadeh advertised, sold, and collected payments from customers for preorders knowing he could not satisfy all orders placed. By April 2022, Malekzadeh owed customers more than $70 million in undelivered sneakers and unknown additional millions held by customers in worthless company gift cards. In her role as Zadeh Kicks chief financial officer, Mockerman conspired with Malekzadeh to provide false and altered financial information to numerous financial institutions—including providing altered bank statements—on more than 15 bank loan applications. Together, Mockerman and Malekzadeh received more than $15 million in loans from these applications.
US v. Post et al
The defendants have been charged with a years-long Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud, Bank Fraud, Wire Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering. The indictment charges them with fraudulently obtaining a total of at least $500,000 from Alaska USA and other federally insured banking institutions. The defendants additionally stole checks and used banking information from countless other victims to further the scheme.
United States v. Onur Aksoy a/k/a “Ron Aksoy” a/k/a “Dave Durden” (Pro Network)
From 2013 through 2022, the defendant, Onur Aksoy, ran a massive operation, broadly named “Pro Network,” to traffic in counterfeit and fraudulent Cisco networking devices. Aksoy and his coconspirators then resold these devices in the United States and around the world, falsely representing them as new, genuine, and high-quality Cisco products. Aksoy trafficked in and resold tens of thousands of such counterfeit and fraudulent devices, which carried an estimated retail value of more than one billion dollars.
United States v. Joseph Sullivan
Failure by former Uber CSO, Joseph Sullivan, to disclose 2016 breach to affected UBER drivers. Hackers revealed that they had accessed and downloaded an Uber database containing the personally identifying information “PII” of approx. 600,000 drivers.
United States v. Amplify Energy Corp., Beta Operating Company, LLC, and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Company
On December 15, 2021, Amplify Energy Corp., Beta Operating Company, LLC, and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Company were indicted on one count of negligent discharge of oil into the contiguous zone of the United States (33 U.S.C. §§ 1321(b)(3), 1319(c)(1)(A)), in a case arising out of the oil spill off of Huntington Beach, California on October 1 and 2, 2021. According to the indictment, defendants own and operate the 17-mile-long San Pedro Bay Pipeline that transports oil from offshore platforms to Long Beach, California. The indictment alleges that, on October 1 and 2, 2021, defendants illegally discharged oil into the Pacific Ocean by acting negligently in at least six different ways in response to the Pipeline’s leak alarms. As a result of the discharge, approximately 25,000 gallons of crude oil leaked from the Pipeline into the San Pedro Bay.
United States v. Tanner Roughton
Defendant Tanner Roughton is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of wire fraud, and one count of filing a false tax returns. The charges stem from Roughton’s participation in scheme to defraud buyers and sellers of two cryptocurrencies by manipulating the price of the cryptocurrencies through various means, including the release of false statements designed to bolster the sale price and generate trading volume, and matched trades with a co-schemer and others to further generate trading volume. The charges allege that Roughton sold the cryptocurrencies for a profit and knowingly failed to report his profits on his tax returns.
U.S. v. Victor Btesh, et al.
Victor Btesh, Bruce Fish, BDF Enterprises, Inc. d/b/a “The Big Lebowski”, Michelle’s DVD Funhouse, Inc. d/b/a “The Amazing Express”, MJR Prime, LLC d/b/a “Ready 2 Go”, and Prime Brooklyn, LLC d/b/a “Super Super Fast”, knowingly entered into and engaged in a combination and conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition by fixing prices for DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs sold through the Amazon Marketplace platform to customers located throughout the United States. The charged conspiracy began at least as early as October 2016 and continued until at least October 29, 2019. All indicted defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
U.S. v. Moshe Porat (21-CR-00170), and U.S. v. Isaac Gottlieb, et al. (21-CR-00160)
The defendant and his co-conspirators provided false information to college ranking publications about statistical data relating to Temple University's Fox School of Business. U.S. News relied on these false and misleading representations and ranked Fox's OMBA program number one in the country four years in a row. U.S. News also ranked Fox's PMBA program as high as number seven in 2017. The defendant marketed the fraudulently inflated rankings to potential Fox applicants, students, and donors in order to obtain money from them.
Case Name: US v. Sorin Becheru
Sorin Becheru was indicted by a Dallas-based federal grand jury for conspiring to commit fraud in connection with access devices from March 2016 through May 2018. On March 3, 2022, the FBI completed the removal of Becheru from Romania to the Northern District of Texas. According to the indictment, Becheru and his co-conspirators allegedly used point-of-sale memory scraping malware to obtain consumers’ credit card information from victim servers located in the U.S. They then allegedly sold the numbers on darkweb carding forums, including “Vendetta” and “Tony Montana.” Buyers used the stolen credit card numbers to purchase goods and services. Becheru—who used various online identities, including t0r.creep.im, turan1@jabbim.com, and buchetta@jabb3r.de — allegedly possessed and sold credit card information for millions of cards. At one point, Becheru was in possession of information for more than 240,000 credit cards belonging to victims located in the Northern District of Texas and elsewhere. Becheru is awaiting trial, which is scheduled to begin on August 28, 2023.
United States v. Greenlaw, et al (UDF)
On January 21, 2021, a jury convicted defendants Hollis Morrison Greenlaw, Benjamin Lee Wissink, Cara Delin Obert, and Jeffrey Brandon Jester of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and eight substantive counts of securities fraud. Between January 2011 and December 2015, the defendants engaged in a scheme to defraud using investment fund entities known as United Development Funding III LP, United Development Funding IV, and United Development Funding Income Fund V (collectively "UDF entities"). The UDF entities were based out of Grapevine, Texas.
U.S. v. Haykaz Mansuryan et al; 21-CR-2660-BAS
This case charges a ring of fraudsters who used skimming devices to steal unwitting victims’ account information from gas pumps, ATMs, and similar common points of sale. The defendants then allegedly used that information to make fraudulent debit and credit cards, which they used to withdraw cash from victims’ accounts and make fraudulent withdrawals and purchase goods in the mount of hundreds of thousands of dollars using funds on the accounts of unwitting victims. According to the indictment, these crimes were committed in and around southern California and elsewhere.