A prominent cryptocurrency businessman called The Godfather and a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) deputy have agreed to plead guilty to multiple federal charges, including conspiracy to violate civil rights, wire fraud, and tax crimes. Los Angeles, CA, 30 September.
After helping create a scheme that duped ordinary people using intimidation, extortion, and abuse of law enforcement power, Adam Iza, 24, and LASD Deputy Eric Chase Saavedra, 41, are now likely to face prison terms.
Crypto Godfather and Deputy Plead Guilty to Fraud
Iza had lived in Bel Air and Newport Coast in the past. Saavedra ran a private security company and, allegedly, also used his law enforcement credentials to help Iza with his illegal activities.
Iza used former deputies to go on their jobs and intervene in the businesses and personal disputes for as much as $100,000 each month, court documents showed. Saavedra used the security company he worked for to pick up private information about Iza’s enemies and to get fake search warrants.
One time, Saavedra faked a warrant to find a victim suspected of holding a laptop containing $100 million in cryptocurrency in an ongoing firearms investigation. In January 2022, Iza, who failed an armed robbery to steal the laptop, joined the movement. Iza sent the victim a video after the attempted robbery of it to intimidate him even more.
According to another case, Iza allegedly coerced an armed deputy to put a gun to the head of a victim and force him to transfer $25,000 into her account before getting the man arrested on trumped-up charges.
Hackers would also steal the WatsAd accounts of Facebook advertising companies and then usurp them to fund Iza’s operations, which also included hacking Facebook advertising accounts and stealing more than $37 million.
Iza and Saavedra admitted to tax evasion. For 2021, for instance, Saavedra neglected to file a report for $373,146 of income, and Iza failed to submit his report worth over $6.7 million in federal income taxes.
Iza faces up to 35 years in federal prison and Saavedra up to 13 years. They are expected to continue their legal proceedings with their initial court appearances in both coming days.
This is a cautionary tale of the perils of criminal exploitation in the cryptocurrency sphere, but one also about the excessive, often unseen power that corrupt institutions choose to wield. Authorities are still investigating how big the operation was.
