Crypto ‘Godfather’ and LA deputy plead guilty to extortion, tax crimes
A crypto businessman often known as “The Godfather” and a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division deputy have agreed to plead responsible to federal prices.
The costs embody conspiracy to violate civil rights, wire fraud, and tax crimes, according to the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in Los Angeles.
Adam Iza, 24, and LASD deputy Eric Chase Saavedra, 41, face jail phrases for his or her roles in a scheme involving intimidation, extortion, and abuse of regulation enforcement powers to focus on victims.
Iza, who beforehand lived in prosperous neighborhoods like Bel Air and Newport Coast, has been in custody since September 2024. Saavedra, who owned a personal safety firm, leveraged his regulation enforcement credentials to help Iza.
Extortion, theft, and tax evasion
Courtroom paperwork reveal that Iza employed off-duty deputies, paying as much as $100,000 month-to-month, to behave as enforcers in opposition to his enterprise and private rivals.
Saavedra, working for Iza by way of his safety firm, often accessed confidential regulation enforcement databases to collect non-public data on Iza’s adversaries. He additionally obtained fraudulent search warrants to facilitate intimidation and theft.
One such warrant, falsely tied to a firearms investigation, enabled Saavedra to find a sufferer believed to own a laptop computer containing $100 million in cryptocurrency. In January 2022, Iza orchestrated a failed armed theft to grab the laptop computer. When the sufferer resisted, Iza later despatched him a video of the tried theft.
In one other incident, Iza used armed deputies to power a sufferer to switch $25,000 from his checking account and later had the sufferer arrested below false pretenses. The scheme additionally concerned Iza stealing over $37 million by hacking Fb promoting accounts to fund his operations.
Each Iza and Saavedra admitted to tax evasion. Iza evaded greater than $6.7 million in federal earnings taxes in 2021, whereas Saavedra didn’t report $373,146 in earnings that very same 12 months.
Iza faces as much as 35 years in federal jail, whereas Saavedra might obtain as much as 13 years. Each are anticipated to make preliminary court docket appearances within the coming days.
