Information for Victims in Large Cases

A grand jury charged the defendants with participating in a criminal enterprise that operated thirteen different moving companies in multiple locations through the United States. The criminal enterprise enriched itself by defrauding, extorting, and stealing from customers who hired the moving companies to move their household goods. Specifically, the criminal enterprise lied to customers about the company's experience and record, provided low binding estimates to secure moving jobs, loaded the customers' household goods into moving trucks, and then illegally demanded money above the binding estimate based on fraudulent calculations of space used by the goods. Customers were required to pay falsely inflated prices to retrieve their possessions and, in some cases, never received their possessions at all. The criminal enterprise protected and perpetuated itself by concealing and misrepresenting the owners, operators, employees, and operations of their moving companies. This fraud was accomplished through a number of different means, including the preparation and submission to federal regulators and to third-party companies of documents containing false information and the use of fake drivers' licenses for the purported owners of the moving companies to further the criminal enterprise.

In June 2020, the website cityxguide.com (“CityXGuide”)—a leading source of online advertisements for prostitution and sex trafficking—was seized by Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a warrant.  Wilhan Martono, the creator, owner, and operator of CityXGuide, was charged in a 28-count indictment with promotion of prostitution and reckless disregard of sex trafficking, interstate racketeering conspiracy (facilitating prostitution), interstate transportation in aid of racketeering (facilitating prostitution), and money laundering.  In August 2021, Martono pled guilty to Promotion and Facilitation of Prostitution and Reckless Disregard of Sex Trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2421A and Conspiracy to Engage in Interstate and Foreign Travel and Transportation In Aid of Racketeering Enterprises in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.

Martono created, owned, and operated a network of websites, including CityXGuide, that posted hundreds of thousands of prostitution advertisements in locations across the United States and around the world.  CityXGuide allowed pimps, prostitutes, and brothels to post and pay for advertisements that featured an explicit list of “intimate activities,” along with nude or partially nude photographs, a physical description, work hours, methods of payment, and contact information for the female being advertised. 

Martono purchased the domain names of CityXGuide and its related websites, purchased and maintained the servers that hosted the websites, and purchased the server space, server equipment, and blocks of Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses—including more than 95 unique IP addresses—to operate the websites. 

Conspirators at an Indian call center used automated, previously recorded calls, commonly referred to as “robocalls,” to initiate contact with victims.  These robocalls usually contained messages designed to create a sense of urgency with the call recipient, including threats of serious legal problems, usually criminal in nature, that required immediate action in order to avoid drastic consequences, including arrest and/or significant financial penalties.  Victims would be instructed to stay on the line or to call a particular number. Eventually victims would speak with one or more live persons, who used a variety of scripts incorporating different fraud schemes to persuade victims to send money via wire money transfer and/or the mail or private interstate commercial carrier shipments.

David Camp engaged in a conspiracy to fix prices for DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs sold through the Amazon Marketplace platform to customers located throughout the United States.  The charged conspiracy began at least as early as May 2018 and continued to on or about October 29, 2019.

Norman W. Fries, Inc., d/b/a Claxton Poultry Farms engaged in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products. The charged conspiracy began at least as early as 2012 and continued at least until early 2019. 

Alla Witte is charged in 19 counts of a 47-count indictment, which accuses her of participating in a criminal organization referred to as the “Trickbot Group,” which deployed the Trickbot malware. The indictment alleges that beginning in November of 2015, Witte and her co-conspirators allegedly worked together to infect victim computers with the Trickbot malware designed to capture online banking login credentials and harvest other personal information, including credit card numbers, emails, passwords, dates of birth, social security numbers and addresses.  Witte and others also allegedly captured login credentials and other stolen personal information to gain access to online bank accounts, execute unauthorized electronic funds transfers and launder the money through U.S. and foreign beneficiary accounts.

The Trickbot Group operated in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Suriname, and primarily targeted victim computers belonging to businesses, entities, and individuals, including those in the Northern District of Ohio and elsewhere in the United States. Targets included hospitals, schools, public utilities, and governments.

According to the indictment, the defendants were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They allegedly helped create and market more than 20 fraudulent investing platforms, including Options Giants, Banking Option, Aeon Options, Option Riders, Bancde Options, Instant Options, Fast Options, Elite Options, Start Options, Crypto Trading World, Dragon Mining, Trinity Mining, BTC Mining Factory, Bitcoin Trading World, BTC Trader Online, BTC Falcon, Perpetual Energy, Hedger Tech, Go Solar Mining, Perfect-Options, and others.

On March 29, 2021, a federal grand jury sitting in New Haven, Connecticut returned an indictment charging Smith with receipt and possession of child pornography. If convicted of the charges, Smith faces a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum term of imprisonment of 40 years. Smith is currently detained pending trial, which is scheduled for June 3, 2021 before Judge Jeffrey Meyer in New Haven.

Dr. William Harwin was charged with participating in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition by agreeing to allocate the provision of medical and radiation oncology services.  While he was President and Managing Physician Partner of Florida Cancer Specialists (FCS), Harwin and his co-conspirators agreed not to compete to provide chemotherapy and radiation treatments to cancer patients in Southwest Florida.  Beginning as early as 1999 and continuing until at least 2016, Harwin entered into an illegal agreement that allocated chemotherapy treatments to FCS and radiation treatments to a competing oncology group.

Securities fraud case involved a “pump and dump” scheme, as well as filing fraudulent/false documents with the SEC and failure to disclose information to the SEC and the public.  For more complete information, please see the case description.

The superseding criminal indictment in the Edwards case charged a more clearly defined group of defendants: specific insiders who engaged in fraud through shell companies. Specifically, between approximately May 1997 and April 2008, the defendants used various shell companies – including Pinnacle Business Management, Inc. (May 1997 to December 2003); CMKM Diamonds, Inc. (November 2002 to October 2005); St. George Metals, Inc. (July 2004 to July 2005); and Global Diamond Exchange, Inc. (November 2005 to April 2008) – to defraud purchasers of stock in those companies. The defendants secretly authorized increases in the number of available shares and falsely represented or hid the true number of shares from investors. At the same time, the conspirators issued billions of shares to themselves through affiliates. By falsely claiming that these shares had not been issued to company affiliates, the conspirators were able to sell these shares without restrictions imposed by law. By issuing false and misleading press releases regarding the companies’ business activities, the defendants were able to drive up demand for the companies’ stock while selling their shares at a profit.

Five defendants have been convicted in this case, including Jeffrey Turino (conspiracy to commit securities fraud), and Melissa Spooner, Ginger Gutierrez, James Kinney and Jeffrey Mitchell (conspiracy to sell unregistered securities). These defendants received sentences of imprisonment and probation and terms of supervised release following service of sentence during which defendants are supervised by a U.S. Probation Officer.

Beginning in 2012 and continuing through in or about February 2018, JAMES HOLSTON owned and operated FBM and Associates. FBM and Associates was a for-profit business located in Jefferson County within the Northern District of Alabama that was in the business of assisting customers with improving or repairing their credit scores, with the goal of improving their abilities to obtain credit from businesses, credit card companies, and financial institutions and/or the terms under which they could obtain credit. Beginning in or about 2012 and continuing through in or about February 2018, FBM and Associates created and sent false police reports to credit reporting agencies claiming that customers were victims of identity fraud. FBM and Associates used the false and fraudulent police reports to attempt to dismiss or discharge outstanding debts and remove legal issues for numerous clients.