Two California men face up to 30 years in jail for allegedly operating a scheme that fraudulently accessed the bank accounts of elderly victims and stole their funds.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California, a 17-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday charges brothers-in-law Ayman Alaaraj and Ahmad Nassar with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Court documents show that in May 2023, Nassar took over several bank accounts belonging to two elderly victims at two separate banks using sophisticated techniques, such as porting over the phone number belonging to one of the victims.
The method enabled Nassar to access the accounts and bypass the banks’ two-factor authentication protection. Nassar, occasionally assisted by Alaaraj, then drained the accounts and ran up unpaid credit card debits, causing more than $794,000 in losses to the victims.
The two men then moved the stolen money through the pass-through accounts created under the victim’s names, as well as funneled $100,000 through Alaaraj’s businesses.
The defendants eventually transferred the money to themselves using ATM cash withdrawals, personal checks, Western Union transactions and Zelle transactions. They also used the stolen funds to pay credit cards, engage in online gambling and buy a Mercedes.
If found guilty, the two men face up to 30 years of jail time and a $1 million fine for each count of bank fraud. They also face a mandatory prison term of two years and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the gross gain or gross loss, for the aggravated identity theft count.
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