Month: May 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

BOSTON – A former member of the Springfield Chapter of the Massachusetts Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (Latin Kings) has pleaded guilty to drug charges.

Jonathan Casiano, a/k/a “King Legend,” 36, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, to two counts of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and fentanyl. U.S. Senior District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel scheduled sentencing for Aug. 17, 2022.

Casiano was identified as a member of the Latin Kings and a drug trafficker operating out of an apartment in Springfield. In July 2019, Casiano was arrested following a traffic stop in Springfield, during which he was found in possession of a privately made 9mm ghost gun with 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition, $9,880 in cash, 486 oxytocin pills and 810 plastic bags containing a total of 87 grams of fentanyl and 66 grams of cocaine.

Casiano was released from custody in December 2019 after posting cash bail.

In December 2019, a federal grand jury returned an indictment alleging racketeering conspiracy, drug conspiracy and firearms charges against 62 leaders, members and associates of the Latin Kings. Casiano was later arrested in February 2020. A subsequent search of Casiano’s person and residence recovered over 2,400 plastic bags bearing the “blue magic” and “chuckie” labels that contained a total of 68 grams of fentanyl, 140 grams of cocaine and other controlled substances. Casiano is the 58^th defendant to plead guilty in the case.

The charge of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and fentanyl provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, at least three years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $1 million. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts; Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Commissioner Carol Mici of the Massachusetts Department of Correction; and New Bedford Police Chief Joseph C. Cordeiro made the announcement. Valuable assistance was also provided by the FBI North Shore Gang Task Force and the Bristol County and Suffolk County District Attorney’s Offices. Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip A. Mallard of the Organized Crime & Gang Unit is prosecuting the case.

This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The remaining defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

SCRANTON- The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Charles R. Ehrenberg, age 34, owner of Ehrenberg Roofing and Construction, Inc., located in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, was sentenced yesterday by United States District Court Judge Malachy E. Mannion to 6 months’ imprisonment to be followed by 6 months’ home confinement with electronic monitoring and a 2-year term of supervised release, for failing to collect and pay over several years’ worth of required federal payroll taxes.

According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, for a four-year period from 2017 to 2020, Ehrenberg willfully failed to collect and pay over to the IRS required federal payroll taxes in the total amount of $185,681.90.  By paying his labor force, which was comprised mostly of undocumented immigrants, an all-cash wage, and by failing to properly account for and pay over any required payroll taxes, Ehrenberg deprived the government of substantial tax revenue.  At sentencing, Ehrenberg was also ordered to make restitution to the IRS in the amount of $185,681.90.       

The case was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffery St John prosecuted the case. 

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Source: United States Department of Justice News

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced today that $15,111,453.84 in illicit proceeds derived from an international digital fraud scheme has been transferred by Switzerland to the United States government pursuant to a Final Order of Forfeiture entered by United States District Judge Eric R. Komitee in the matter of United States v. Sergey Ovsyannikov, et al.

“This forfeiture is the largest international cybercrime recovery in the history of the Eastern District of New York and sends a powerful message to those involved in cyber fraud that there are no boundaries to prosecuting these bad actors and locating their ill-gotten assets wherever they are in the world,” stated United States Attorney Peace. “This Office will continue working with our law enforcement partners to take the economic gain out of crime through all available resources, including asset forfeiture, and protect the integrity of our marketplace.”

Mr. Peace thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, and the New York City Police Department for their outstanding investigative work, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs for their invaluable assistance in this matter.

The Criminal Scheme
The internet is, in large part, freely available to users worldwide because it runs on digital advertising: website owners display advertisements on their sites and are compensated for doing so by intermediaries representing businesses seeking to advertise their goods and services to real human customers. In general, digital advertising revenue is based on how many users click or view the ads on those websites. The defendants in this case represented to others that they ran legitimate companies that delivered advertisements to real human internet users accessing real internet webpages. In fact, the defendants faked both the users and the webpages; they programmed computers they controlled to load advertisements on fabricated webpages, via an automated program, in order to fraudulently obtain digital advertising revenue.

Between December 2015 and October 2018, Sergey Ovsyannikov and Yevgeniy Timchenko, citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Aleksandr Isaev, a citizen of the Russian Federation, carried out a digital advertising fraud scheme known as “3ve.2 Template A” or “Eve.” The defendants used a global “botnet”-a network of malware-infected computers operated without the true owner’s knowledge or consent-to perpetrate digital advertising fraud. The defendants developed an intricate infrastructure of command-and-control servers to direct and monitor the infected computers and check whether a particular infected computer had been flagged by cybersecurity companies as associated with fraud. By using this infrastructure, the defendants accessed more than 1.7 million infected computers belonging to individuals and businesses in the United States and elsewhere, including more than 1,500 at residences and businesses in the Eastern District of New York—and used hidden browsers on those infected computers to download fabricated webpages and load ads onto those fabricated webpages. As a result of this scheme, the defendants falsified billions of ad views and spoofed more than 86,000 domains associated with online publishers, causing businesses to pay more than $29 million for ads that were never actually viewed by real human internet users and diverting that money away from the real online publishers for whom it was intended. The $15.1 million recovered from financial accounts in Switzerland were the proceeds of this digital advertising fraud scheme.

Ovsyannikov was arrested in October 2018 in Malaysia and extradited to the United States. Timchenko was arrested in November 2018 in Estonia and extradited to the United States. Both pleaded guilty and have been sentenced. Isaev remains at large.

Following the arrest of Ovsyannikov by Malaysian authorities, U.S. law enforcement authorities, in conjunction with various private sector companies, began the process of dismantling the criminal cyber infrastructure utilized in the botnet-based scheme, which involved computers infected with malicious software known in the cybersecurity community as “Kovter.” The FBI executed seizure warrants to sinkhole 23 internet domains used to further the charged botnet-based scheme or otherwise used to further the Kovter botnet. The FBI also executed search warrants at 11 different U.S. server providers for 89 servers related to the charged botnet-based scheme or Kovter.

Forfeiture matters related to the sentencings in this case were handled by Assistant United States Attorney Brendan G. King and former Assistant United States Attorney Karin K. Orenstein of the Office’s Asset Recovery Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Saritha Komatireddy, Artie McConnell, and Alexander F. Mindlin are in charge of the criminal prosecution.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

The Department of Justice announced that it has reached a settlement agreement with Amtex Systems Inc., an IT staffing and recruiting company based in New York. The settlement resolves claims that Amtex discriminated against U.S. workers based on their citizenship or immigration status during several stages of the recruitment process because their clients preferred workers with temporary employment visas.

“IT staffing agencies cannot unlawfully exclude applicants or impose additional burdens because of someone’s citizenship or immigration status,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to enforcing the law to ensure that job applicants, including U.S. workers, are protected from unlawful discrimination.”

The department’s investigation began after a U.S. citizen filed a discrimination complaint with the Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) against Amtex. Based on its investigation, the department concluded that Amtex used a company operating in India to identify and screen job applicants based on clients’ preferences for workers with particular citizenship or immigration statuses. The investigation determined that the recruiters sent job advertisements with their clients’ unlawful citizenship or immigration status preferences, and also implemented those preferences when considering applicants. The recruiters’ practices harmed U.S. workers by deterring them from applying, and not considering those who did apply. For example, the investigation revealed that Amtex did not consider at least three U.S. workers when they applied to a job posting that stated a preference for workers with temporary employment visas. The department further concluded that recruiters for Amtex discriminated against non-U.S. citizen applicants by routinely requiring them to provide an immigration document to move forward in the recruitment process.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) protects U.S. citizens, non-U.S. citizen nationals, refugees, asylees, and recent lawful permanent residents from workplace discrimination based on citizenship or immigration status. Recruiters are liable for violations of the INA if they implement a client’s unlawful discriminatory preferences. Under the INA, employers or recruiters can only limit jobs based on citizenship or immigration status if required by a law, regulation, executive order or government contract. Further, because federal law only allows employers to check a person’s permission to work after they are hired, employers and recruiters must not verify the permission to work of job applicants.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Amtex will pay over $15,000 in civil penalties to the United States, revise its policies and procedures, train relevant employees and agents on the INA’s anti-discrimination provision, and be subject to monitoring for a three-year period to ensure compliance.

IER is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA. Among other things, this law prohibits discrimination based on citizenship or immigration status, and national origin in hiring, firing, or recruitment or referral for a fee; unfair documentary practices; retaliation; and intimidation. More information about citizenship status discrimination under the INA is available in this flyer. 

Learn more about IER’s work and how to get assistance through this brief video. Applicants or employees who believe they were discriminated against based on their citizenship, immigration status, or national origin in hiring, firing, recruitment, or during the employment eligibility verification process (Form I-9 and E-Verify); or subjected to retaliation, may file a charge. The public also can contact IER’s worker hotline at 1-800-255-7688; call IER’s employer hotline at 1-800-255-8155 (1-800-237-2515, TTY for hearing impaired); email IER@usdoj.gov; sign up for a free webinar; or visit IER’s English and Spanish websites. Subscribe to GovDelivery to receive updates from IER. 

View the Spanish translation of this press release here. View the Hindi translation of this press release below.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

PROVIDENCE – Two men who played various roles in an underground financial network in support of international internet and email fraud schemes have been sentenced to federal prison, announced United States Attorney Zachary A. Cunha.

 Babawale Jenyo, 33, of Warwick, previously convicted at trial of operating an illegal money transmitting business, was sentenced on Tuesday by U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., to a year and a day in federal prison; Abiodun Shobaloju, 29, of Baltimore, MD, who previously pled guilty to wire fraud, was sentenced by Chief Judge McConnell on April 26, 2022, to 24 months of incarceration and ordered to pay restitution to fraud victims totaling $136,431. 

According to court documents, Shobaloju was part of a conspiracy that carried out email and romance scams that succeeded in fraudulently obtaining large sums from multiple victims.  As part of his role in the conspiracy, Shobaloju provided members of the conspiracy with critical bank information, and also created a shell company and bank account to be used expressly to receive and disperse proceeds from the fraud scheme. Once the ill-gotten funds were deposited in accounts controlled by Shobaloju, he would often withdraw cash for his own use and then transfer the remaining funds to other bank accounts.

In the matter of the United States v. Babawale Jenyo, the government presented evidence and testimony at trial that funds fraudulently obtained from unsuspecting victims of email and romance scams were passed through bank accounts that Jenyo controlled. Jenyo’s criminal conduct was first discovered by Rhode Island State Police in 2017, resulting in his arrest May 2017 on charges that he participated in an email scam that defrauded a West Des Moines, IA, couple.  In May of 2019, Jenyo was arrested again, this time by the United States Secret Service, which determined that, even after his encounter with Rhode Island State Police, Jenyo continued to engage in illicit money transferring activities up until the date of his second arrest. 

The cases were prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Sandra R. Hebert and Richard B. Myrus.

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