5 Southern California men arrested in Germany accused of stealing $345M from victims
Five Southern Californian men have been arrested at the request of the German Government after being accused of being involved in a massive financial fraud scheme.
The five men allegedly defrauded $345 million, around €300 million, between 2016 and 2021, according to an official statement from the Department of Justice.
To conceal their plan, they created a scheme which involved recurring debit and credit charges of less than €50 to throw off the financial authorities. These charges were linked to a series of fake companies, most of which were based in the United Kingdom and Cyprus, according to the statement.
The intricate network targeted 4.3 million people across 193 countries, allowing them to swindle money from thousands of victims.
Medhat Mourid, Andrew Garroni, Guy Mizrachi, Ardeshir Akhavan and Tunde Benak were taken into custody for their alleged involvement in the elaborate fraud scheme following an investigation by Europol. Benak is a Canadian national who lives in Southern California.
According to NBC Los Angeles, the Southern Californian men will soon be extradited to Germany to face justice after they made their initial federal court appearances on Wednesday.
The five men were just a small group of the people arrested by the German-led effort to cripple the alleged fraud network. A total of eighteen people have been arrested, although 44 people are suspected to have been involved in the criminal scheme.
According to the DOJ statement, the criminal network “colluded with German payment service processors, including their executives and compliance officers,” in order to process the fraudulent charges. They used “fictitious” websites, only accessible via direct links or URLs, to make their alleged scam appear to be legitimate.
German police also confirmed during a press conference that the alleged fraudsters also tried to charge a further €750 million, but were unsuccessful due to the bank cards they were trying to use expiring.
“In the United States, the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs (OIA), the U.S. government’s central authority in criminal matters, worked closely with German officials and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California to provide legal guidance and coordinate the successful arrest of the U.S.-based defendants,” the DOJ said in a statement. “OIA participated in coordination meetings related to the takedown and worked directly with the German prosecutor to ensure Germany met U.S. legal requirements to arrest these fugitives with a view toward extradition.”
