Broward men laundered $2 million using scams and COVID loans, feds say
Three Broward County residents pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to laundering $2 million from scam email campaigns and fraudulent COVID-19 relief loans, according to federal investigators.
Jimpcy One, 35; Gousman Lemy, 42; and Frantz Guillaume Jr., also known as Sandro Saintfloeur, 44; each face up to 20 years in federal prison.
Back in 2017, Lemy and Guillaume started their fraudulent scheme by targeting a Texas-based university, according to the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. They netted $425,000 by compromising company emails through malware.
Such schemes involve tricking an employee into clicking on a bogus email with attachments to a malicious website, releasing malware that can infect their email, computer and company network. The virus can obtain personal information such as passwords.
Then in 2019, One joined the two men in laundering $900,000 from another U.S.-based company, obtained through a similar email scheme, authorities said. The men also tricked individuals into wiring money into accounts they controlled.
The trio moved their ill-gotten proceeds by transferring the money among bank accounts of various shell companies.
When the coronavirus hit in 2020, they employed a new scheme.
The three men disguised their new and existing shell companies as small businesses in need of COVID-19 relief and applied to two government programs under the CARES Act: the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, authorities said.
One, Gousman, and Lemy received $2 million from the programs.
U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz will sentence the three men on Nov. 18.
This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Broward men laundered $2 million using scams and COVID loans, feds say."
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