Crypto ‘Godfather’ Gets Six Years for Hiring Sheriff’s Deputies, $37M Meta Fraud

Adam Iza, the 26-year-old who styled himself “The Godfather” and is already serving 15 years over an tried Bitcoin theft, has been sentenced to an extra 78 months for hiring off-duty Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies to harass folks he was in dispute with, stealing greater than $37 million from Meta, and hiding the proceeds with cryptocurrency custodians to evade tax.

U.S. District Choose Percy Anderson additionally ordered him to pay $23,402,766 in restitution, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Central District of California said. Iza pleaded responsible in January 2025 to conspiracy in opposition to rights, wire fraud and tax evasion, and has been in custody since September 2024.

The brand new time period runs concurrent to that Connecticut sentence, imposed final month over a robbery attempt within the month earlier than his arrest, so it provides nothing to the time he’ll truly serve.

Between August 2021 and April 2022 Iza employed off-duty deputies as private safety. He admitted in his plea settlement to conspiring with them to tug confidential legislation enforcement data and private knowledge on folks he had monetary and different disputes with, and to acquire court-authorized search warrants to trace these folks down. He additionally had the deputies intimidate and threaten them.

Per the DoJ, 5 former deputies have now been convicted over work they did for him. They embody Eric Chase Saavedra, 42, a former federal activity power officer who arrange the safety firm that equipped them, who obtained 21 months on September 28. Michael David Coberg, 45, is serving 63 months for serving to extort a rival and arranging a sham drug arrest. Scott Allen Simpkins, 34, obtained 18 months for obstructing an investigation right into a $25,000 extortion at Iza’s Bel Air mansion, and David Anthony Rodriguez, 45, a year for submitting a false search warrant software.

Folks with cash can’t purchase “warrants, arrests, badges, or firearms to be used in personal disputes,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

The $37 million Meta fraud

The fraud was separate. From December 2020, Iza gained entry to Meta enterprise supervisor accounts and the traces of credit score connected to them, then bought that entry on to promoting corporations. Meta purchasers have been billed for promoting they by no means purchased; when the billing was found, Meta refunded them and absorbed the loss itself.

About $37 million flowed into his corporations’ accounts between 2020 and 2022. He admitted receiving no less than $36,360,844 in gross earnings by means of 2023 and inflicting the IRS a lack of $13,286,152, submitting no company returns in any respect. To cover it he hid his possession of Zort, his crypto buying and selling platform, had a co-schemer purchase private objects with the cash, and moved company earnings to cryptocurrency custodians.

Iris Rabaya Au, 37, Iza’s former girlfriend, was sentenced to 18 months on September 21 for failing to report greater than $2.6 million she obtained by means of his actions. She was ordered to pay $1,484,343 in restitution and to forfeit a fleet of luxurious and high-performance vehicles, designer purses and three “Godfather” sculptures, amongst different property.