A Passaic County man was sentenced today to 60 months in prison for his role in a business email compromise (BEC) scheme in which he and others opened bank accounts to function as conduits for stolen funds, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.
According to federal officials, Lawrence Espaillat, 42, of Clifton previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Peter G. Sheridan in Trenton federal court to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Judge Sheridan imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.
According to documents filed in this and other cases and statements made in court:
From March 2017 to June 2018, Espaillat, conspirators Corry Pringley and Amanda Suazo, and others participated in a scheme to steal more than $1 million dollars from individual and corporate victims.
The scheme involved recruiting “mules” – including Espaillat, before he rose to the level of recruiter – Suazo and Pringley, to provide their personal identifying information.
This information was used to incorporate sham businesses with the N.J. Department of the Treasury under the mules’ names. The mules eventually opened bank accounts in the names of the sham corporations.
A related cyberattack aspect of the scheme involved creating email addresses mimicking – but differing slightly from – legitimate email addresses of supervisory employees at various companies, vendors that did business with those victim companies, mortgage lenders that dealt with individuals in connection with real estate purchases, and brokerage firms and accountants who provided financial services.
The conspirators used these deceptive email addresses to send emails that appeared to be requests for payment of legitimate invoices or debts owed by the victims. The victims were deceived into transferring funds by wire into the bogus bank accounts opened by the money mules and controlled by the conspirators.
After the victims complied with the fraudulent wiring instructions, Espaillat, Suazo and Pringley, under the direction of other conspirators, quickly debited thousands of dollars from the accounts through in-person and ATM withdrawals and debit card purchases.
They also transferred the funds to foreign bank accounts they controlled. Espaillat, Suazo and Pringley kept a fraction of the proceeds as payment.
For example, over a three-day period in April 2018, a corporate victim in Texas deposited $3.8 million dollars in a bank account opened by Pringley and controlled by Espaillat, Pringley and Suazo, who withdrew or transferred more than $1 million from the account.
n addition to the prison term, Espaillat was sentenced to three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay restitution of $1.7 million and forfeit $12,000.
Suazo and Pringley pleaded guilty on January 17, 2019, and February 14, 2019, respectively, to separate informations charging each with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Today, Pringley was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, three years of supervised release, restitution of $1.28 million and forfeiture of $8,000. Suazo is awaiting sentencing.