Month: May 2022

A two-count indictment was unsealed today in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging Cory Zeidman with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering conspiracy in connection with a sports betting fraud scheme he operated from Long Island and Florida. The defendant was arrested this morning and Florida and will make his initial appearance at the federal courthouse in Miami.  

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Ricky Patel, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), New York, Patrick Ryder, Commissioner, Nassau County Police Department, and Daniel Brubaker, United States Postal Inspector in Charge, announced the charges.  

“As alleged, Zeidman defrauded his victims, stole their life savings and persuaded them to drain their retirement accounts to invest in his bogus sports betting group, all so he could spend it on international vacations, a multi-million dollar residence and poker tournaments,” stated United States Attorney Breon Peace. “Today’s indictment serves as a reminder to all of us to be wary of so-called investment opportunities that purport to have inside information, as they are really a gamble not worth taking.” 

“As alleged, Zeidman preyed on individuals who were led to believe he had inside information that would lead them to easy money. In reality, he was selling nothing but lies and misinformation— bilking millions from victims along the way, leaving their lives in financial ruin and their bank accounts empty,” said HSI New York Acting Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel. “HSI will continue to work together with our partners to follow the money and tackle complex financial investigations to bring to justice fraudsters like Zeidman, who finance their lavish lifestyles by concocting ways to bamboozle the innocent when their only real goal is lining their pockets with ill-gotten cash.” 

“Mr. Zeidman took advantage of the public’s interest to “get in on the ground floor” of his sports betting organization.  He devised a criminal scheme to fatten his pockets using nothing more than people’s love for sports and his clever words wrapped around a fraud.  Postal Inspectors remind investors to thoroughly review all investment offers to ensure they are not left with a line of empty promises and a drained bank account,” said Inspector in Charge Brubaker.  

The defendant was the leader of an organization that placed national radio advertisements to lure victims to retain the organization for sports betting advice.  The victims were led to believe that the organization had privileged information that made betting on sporting events a no risk proposition.  Victims were required to pay a fee to obtain this information which, unbeknownst to them, was either fictitious or obtained from an internet search by defendant and his co-conspirators.  Many victims lost their life savings. 

The defendant used the following aliases:  Richard Barnes, Walter Barr, Mr. Carlyle, Ray Palmer, Rick Cash, Elliot Stern, Gordon Howard, David Coates, Simon Coates, Paul Knox, Mark Lewis, Joel Orenstein and Steve Nash.  Some of the company names used by defendant’s scheme were Gordon Howard Global, Ray Palmer Group and Grant Sports International.    

Any individuals who believe they may have been the victim of the alleged crimes perpetrated in connection with this release can contact HSI at 1-866-347-2423. 

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. 

The government’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Anthony Bagnuola, Charles P. Kelly and Diane Beckmann.

The Defendant: 

CORY ZEIDMAN 
Age:  61 
Boca Raton, Florida

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 22-CR-228 (JS)

A New York man was found guilty by a federal jury in Brooklyn, following a three-week trial before U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and five substantive counts of providing material support to ISIS.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Mirsad Kandic, 40, of Brooklyn, New York, and Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, was a high-ranking member of ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization. He had multiple responsibilities within the global terrorist organization, including recruiting foreign fighters, trafficking foreign fighters from the West through Turkey and into Syria, and obtaining weapons, military equipment, maps, money, and false identifications for ISIS fighters. In carrying out these responsibilities, the defendant worked directly with ISIS emirs and battlefield commanders, including Bajro Ikanovic, who commanded an ISIS training camp in Syria beginning in or around 2014. Ikanovic, in turn, reported to Omar Shishani, then the top military commander for ISIS, and a key advisor to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was, at the time, the leader of ISIS and the self-declared Caliph of the Islamic State. 

According to the testimony of 36 witnesses and evidence drawn from six continents, Kandic attempted to leave the United States to fight jihad as early as the summer of 2012. He was denied boarding at the United States point of departure and notified that he was on the no-fly list. In January 2013, Kandic attempted to fly from Toronto, Canada, to Istanbul, Turkey, on a direct flight. He was again denied boarding. The defendant then took a two-day Greyhound bus ride from New York City to Monterrey, Mexico, in November 2013, and flew through Panama, Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Kosovo, and Turkey before arriving in Syria at the end of 2013. In Syria, Kandic joined ISIS and became a fighter for the group in Haritan, an ISIS stronghold in the outskirts of Aleppo, wielding Russian-made PK machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles.

ISIS leadership then directed Kandic to Turkey to take up the role of smuggling foreign fighters and weapons into Syria from abroad, and to serve as an emir for ISIS media. Kandic disseminated ISIS recruitment messages and gruesome propaganda using more than 120 Twitter accounts. For example, Kandic sent out an ISIS-produced “documentary” titled the “Flames of War.” This video celebrated ISIS conquests and macabre executions of ISIS captives, including instances where victims were forced to dig their own graves before being summarily executed by gunshot. The defendant tweeted that this video was the “best thing ever seen on screen.”

Kandic was also a dedicated and prolific recruiter of foreign fighters for ISIS. He sent thousands of radicalized ISIS volunteer fighters from Western countries into ISIS-controlled territories in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. This included a fellow New Yorker who became an ISIS sniper and sniper trainer, and another individual who became an emir for ISIS safehouses in the Idlib province of Syria.

One foreign fighter recruited by the defendant was Jake Bilardi of Australia. Bilardi contacted the defendant in June 2014 for assistance in traveling to Syria to join ISIS. Kandic provided Bilardi – who had just turned 18 years old and had never traveled internationally before – with instructions and guidance for reaching Istanbul, Turkey. Kandic then arranged for Bilardi to be picked up at the airport in Istanbul and smuggled him into Syria. Kandic maintained contact with Bilardi as he became an ISIS fighter and ISIS suicide bomber. Bilardi went on to commit a suicide truck attack with fellow ISIS members on March 11, 2015, in Ramadi, Iraq, killing himself, more than 30 Iraqi soldiers, and an Iraqi policeman. Prior to the attack, the defendant wished Bilardi well and stated, “May Allah make [their] inner organs implode.” After the attack, Kandic praised Bilardi, both on Twitter and to a co-conspirator. In audio recordings referencing similar suicide attacks, the defendant praised the killing of more than 90 people as “good.”

In addition, Kandic provided battlefield intelligence and maps to ISIS battlefield commanders and fighters on the ground, including Ikanovic. Kandic also conspired with Ikanovic and other ISIS members in Syria to dig tunnels under the Turkey-Syria border to move 800-1000 fighters into ISIS at a time. Kandic also shaped the information environment in which ISIS operated by enforcing ISIS media and publicity discipline. For example, the defendant directed other ISIS supporters to refrain from posting any information about the success (or failure) of ISIS recruitment efforts as well as to minimize any reporting about ISIS military action. Kandic also managed money for ISIS fighters in Syria, including two ISIS fighters who gave the defendant their bank cards, from which bank records showed more than $40,000 was transacted. Kandic smuggled weapons to ISIS in Syria, including a rifle scope for an ISIS sniper. Kandic operated a private market via Telegram – called “Khilafah (Caliphate) Market” – for which the defendant was the group administrator with authority to restrict access to the group. Members frequently posted firearms and military equipment for sale, including mortars, suicide belts, assault rifles, and other firearms. Among the members of the defendant’s private Telegram market was Abu Luqman, who, at the time, was the ISIS governor for the Raqqa province, ISIS’s de facto capital in Syria.

Kandic was arrested in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was convicted of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS and five substantive counts of providing material support to ISIS in the forms of personnel, including himself, Bilardi, and others, as well as services, weapons, property, and equipment, and false documentation and identification. At sentencing, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment on the two counts resulting in death, and 20 years’ imprisonment on each of the other four charges. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Saritha Komatireddy, J. Matthew Haggans, and Josh Hafetz for the Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case, with valuable assistance provided by Trial Attorney Jennifer Levy of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and paralegals Matt Wulf and Huda Abouchaer.

The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, the FBI’s Legal Attachés abroad, and foreign authorities in multiple countries on three continents provided critical assistance in this case. The Justice Department extends its appreciation to the Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency, the Bosnian State Intelligence and Security Agency, the Bosnian Foreigner’s Affairs Service, the Bosnian State Prosecutor’s Office, the Australian Federal Police, the Victoria Police (Australia), the Australian Border Force, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Attorney-General’s Department, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, Joint Operations Command in Iraq, and the FBI Legal Attaché Offices in Sarajevo, Canberra, Nur-Sultan, and Baghdad, for their extraordinary assistance in the investigation and prosecution. 

The department also thanks the Ministry of Justice for the Republic of Finland, the Stuttgart Police Department and Federal Office of Justice in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development in the Republic of South Africa, and the central authorities responsible for mutual legal assistance in Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Ukraine, as well as FBI’s Legal Attaché Offices in those countries for their assistance in the investigation.

PROVIDENCE – A Texas man who allegedly participated in a conspiracy where one member posed as a high-ranking military officer stationed overseas while befriending and gaining the trust of seniors in at least ten states, including Rhode Island, has been charged in federal court in Rhode Island with bilking seniors out of nearly one million dollars, announced United States Attorney Zachary A. Cunha.

Fola Alabi, aka Folayemi Alabi, 51, was arrested at his Richmond, Texas, home on Tuesday, and charged by way of a federal criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Providence with conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud; wire fraud; mail fraud; conspiracy to commit money laundering; money laundering; Alabi was also charged under the Senior Citizens Against Marketing Scams Act of 1994, which provides for enhanced penalties for telemarketing fraud that targets or victimizes persons over age 55.

An investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service, FBI, United States Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Attorney’s Office determined that Alabi allegedly bilked seniors out of at least $915,301.

It is alleged in charging documents that one member of the conspiracy befriended unsuspecting seniors online, often posing as a General in the U.S. military serving overseas; or, as a family member offering an investment opportunity. It is alleged that this conspirator, feigning to have a personal, and sometimes romantic, interest in his victims, convinced his victims to send substantial sums of money, usually in the form of bank checks or cash, to addresses and companies in Texas controlled by Alabi or an individual associated with him. It is alleged that once received, the money was deposited into one of several bank accounts controlled by Alabi and quickly withdrawn or transferred to other accounts.

 It is alleged that among Alabi’s victims is a 78-year-old Rhode Island widow who was persuaded by someone claiming to be “General Miller,” purportedly a four-star General currently overseas, to provide $60,000 to finance shipment of his personal belongings to the United States. At “General Miller’s” direction, a check was made payable to Full Circle Import Exports and mailed to a Texas address that was determined by investigators to be Alabi’s residence. It is further alleged that the victim was prepared to send a second, and significantly larger sum of money to “General Miller,” when it was determined by her bank and the Westerly Police Department that she was likely being defrauded.

The federal criminal complaint filed in this matter is merely an accusation. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. In addition to the criminal charges announced today, the government has seized several bank accounts associated with the defendant’s alleged criminal activity and a 2010 Mercedes Benz registered to Alabi.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ly T. Chin.

United States Attorney Cunha thanks the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Elder Abuse Unit; the Westerly, RI, and Prescott Valley, AZ, Police Departments; Texas Department of Public Safety; West Virginia State Police; and the Santa Clara, CA, County District Attorney’s Office for their assistance in the investigation of this matter.

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