What are some of the scams that are done by the mafia?
Let’s get right into it!
3 - The World’s Worst Gambler MGM Grand, a casino based in Detroit, was
declared not responsible for a gambler losing up to $6 million in investor funds at its
tables.
Gino Accettola, the gambler in question, was treated like royalty when he gambled at MGM
Grand.
The casino extended extra lines of credit to him and gave him discounted rooms and even
free meals.
All of this made Accettola so comfortable that he went on to gamble away around six
million dollars.
But the casino didn't just give him discounted rooms and extra lines of credit; they also
waived the right to do a background check on Accettola.
If they had, the MGM may have discovered that Accettola was gambling with investors' funds.
They may have realized that Accettola had no other employment, no other sources of income,
and was living large off the dime of others.
They also may have discovered his criminal history involving identity theft and grand
larceny.
But since the MGM was both greedy and lazy, Acettola had everything he needed to lose
millions.
Before Accettola got into gambling away investors' funds, he was involved in petty crime, even
having a stint in prison in the 1990s.
His more recent criminal involvement was in 2013 when he pled guilty in a Macomb County
Court to fraud-related offenses, getting a ten-month suspended sentence for his efforts.
But that didn't teach Accettola a lesson.
Instead, he continued to commit all sorts of crimes.
He eventually got carried away and gambled all of his investors' funds.
You might be wondering how Accettola got these investments in the first place.
Well, Accettola was a skilled salesman who could convince many people to loan him money
for his business.
He promised abnormally high short-term returns and claimed the money invested would go into
commercial construction projects in Michigan and Florida.
But Accettolla was lying.
A lot of these projects didn't exist, and what he was actually doing was an elaborate
ruse.
To perpetuate his lies, he provided his would-be investors with fraudulent emails, contracts,
and payout schedules concerning the projects.
In the end, he was able to source around $6,000,000 from investors.
Our con man didn't just try his hands at defrauding investors; he also tried to defraud his friends
too.
Accettola owned about five tanning salons in Miami.
His companies used Interlink, a middleman payment gateway, to process payments.
He convinced his friend, who was the owner of Interlink, to raise the limit for processing
credit card refunds for an allegedly defective tanning product.
This meant that Interlink would process refunds for that product, and the tanning locations
would reimburse Interlink.
However, the tanning businesses never repaid Interlink, and Accettola managed to scam them
for about $200,000.
Gambling Losses
Now that Accettola had all of this money he'd swindled, he had enough cash to spend on what
he loved doing.
Which, of course, was gambling with someone else’s money.
Accettola’s casino of choice was MGM Grand Detroit, where they treated him like complete
royalty.
Surprisingly, Acetolla was an extremely bad blackjack player.
One would expect a fraudster to be better at gambling, but Accettola was a complete
exception to that rule.
He lost money all day long, and MGM Grand encouraged him to continue playing.
The casino gave him everything he needed- lines of credit, discounted rooms and meals,
and whatever else to make him happy despite losing money.
As his losses began to mount and MGM Grand continued to extend his credit, it reached
a threshold where the Casino was given permission to access to his background data.
Because they extended him a long line of credit, they could legally check his background and
see whether he was worthy of loaning to.
But the MGM Grand didn’t check, and, as such, didn't realize that he was gambling
investors' funds away.
Since Acetolla was the worst gambler on the planet, MGM Casino might have had every reason
not to check his background.
One might even say they had every incentive to make sure he continued playing for as long
as he could.
Arrest
In any case, Accettola was eventually arrested and charged in court for his crimes.
But this didn't mark the end of his crime saga.
Despite being found guilty, Acettola managed to convince the judge to sentence him to only
a year in jail if he agreed to pay back a large portion of his loot.
This proposed one-year sentence was below the 6-year sentencing guidelines that the
judge ought to have followed.
So instead, the judge offered a reduced sentence if Accettola repaid $50,000, but Acetolla
couldn't even find the money for that.
The judge eventually just gave Accettola the seven-year sentence that was in the sentencing
guidelines anyway.
While his victims understood that Acetolla's incarceration meant they would never see their
money again, they were also glad that he was paying for his crimes.
Was our conman ever remorseful?
Not really.
While he gave a short apology in court, his victims said he hadn't shown an ounce of remorse
for his actions.
2 - From Russia, Without Love Alex Golant was an auto broker who used straw
buyers to falsify financing applications and defraud local car dealers.
Golant's scheme was to obtain money from investors and financial institutions through false pretenses
and then use the money however he wanted.
Golant took money from at least 40 victims claiming that their money would be used to
purchase and export luxury vehicles to China.
Golant also secured financing from financial institutions using fraudulent documents and
straw borrowers, who were working for Golant's scheme behind the scenes.
And he did all of this while on the run from the United States Government and the Russian
mob.
If Golant wasn't such a horrible fraudster, one might have been impressed by his ability
to get on the bad side of the Mafia and the law at the same time.
He found himself in a situation where he could either accept up to 50 years of jail time
with the US government or a nasty fate with the Russian mob.
Which path did he take?
Let's find out.
Distort And Export
Golant was a man of many scams and schemes who loved to run his fraud through multiple
channels so that he would have multiple fault lines.
Golant created a business called Timeless Auto Group to set up his scheme to recruit
straw borrowers from around the country.
These straw borrowers would visit dealerships that sold luxury cars like Range Rovers, Maseratis,
and Mercedes-Benz GLS 450s and 550s.
These dealerships would end up selling the luxury vehicles, and the straw borrowers would
agree to a six-year financing agreement with them.
This agreement was usually brokered by a company called Ally Financial.
The borrowers would turn the vehicle over to Golant, who would have them shipped to
buyers outside the country within a month.
When Ally Financial discovered the scam, it had lost over $300,000 to Golant's fraud.
Here's where things get a little dicey: Ally Financial took the case to court and it ended
up being dismissed for unclear reasons.
Aside from his straw-buying operation, Golant also managed to convince over 40 victims to
invest in Timeless Auto Group.
Unfortunately for those investors, Golant didn't use the money to purchase vehicles.
Instead, he turned the operation into an elaborate Ponzi scheme and used the money to support
a lavish lifestyle.
Golant flew all over the country in private jets to engage in high-stakes betting at exclusive
casinos.
He also lived in a house he rented for $10,000 per month and paid professional gamblers to
play for him, and then used whatever was left of Investors' funds to settle gambling debts
that he had accumulated.
Cooperation
This wasn't Golant's first rodeo either- he had been previously convicted of fraud in
a similar auto-brokering scheme in New York.
But Golant wasn't sentenced for it until he helped the FBI make a racketeering case against
two members of the Russian Mafia.
After testifying against them, he was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
And it was under this supervised release period that he started this new straw borrowers slash
Ponzi scheme slash all round fraud-guy act.
When he realized that the feds were on his trail during his supervised release, he fled.
But Golant couldn't remain on the lam, as the long arm of the law eventually caught
up with him.
His trial was conducted, and the court sentenced him to 126 months in jail.
1 - Punishing Sinners?
Zain Qaiser blackmailed thousands of, let’s call them, adult film purveyors worldwide
out of about £4 million pounds.
At the time Zain got sentenced, he was the most prolific cyber criminal to be sentenced
in the United Kingdom.
According to the court, Zain’s crimes were so extensive that the criminal justice system
had simply never seen anything like it.
Zain was just recently sentenced, but he was arrested for his crimes about five years ago.
However, due to the complexity of the investigation and mental health concerns his trial had been
delayed.
Educational Movies
So how did Zain manage to scam all these visitors to these sites?
Let's just say he had some help.
Zain first started his cybercrime journey by making money off ransomware attacks- viruses
that freeze up the victim's computer until a Ransom was paid.
After a while, Zain became bold.
He contacted the Russian controller of an extremely potent cyber attack tool with the
promise that he would split his profits with them if his planned mass blackmail operation
was successful.
To further cement his operation, he also forged connections with Chinese and American cybercriminals
who could help him move the cash without it leading back to him.
Once he was done with those preparations, the operation itself began.
Zain bought advertising space on sites and put malicious links on the ads.
The links were set up so that people who clicked on them would immediately download some malware
named Angler.
If the victim's laptop didn't have great AntiVirus systems in place, Angler would deliver a virus
to the computer that would seize the entire system.
Once control was established, the malware would display a notice that told the victim
that the FBI had seized the computer.
The message said that the seizure was in light of the user's crimes watching these videos.
In the same message, the user would be informed that if they didn't pay around a £100 fine,
they would be charged to court and could be imprisoned for up to 3 years.
This was usually enough motivation for most users to pay the purported fee.
The companies that Zain purchased these ads from were wholly unaware of his nefarious
actions.
Ads Aware
The scam was extremely successful and Zain made a lot of money.
Law enforcement officials still aren't sure of just how much Zain made, but managed a
rough estimate of at least £4 million.
And what did Zain spend the money on?
Well, he called himself ‘The King’, if that’s any indication.
He spent the bulk of his cash on high-end hotels, women, gambling, drugs, and a £5,000
Rolex watch.
Most of his victims simply paid the ransom, rather than going to the police- getting malware
from an adult site isn’t something most people want to admit to . But how was Zain
finally caught if his victims never went to the police?
The simple truth is that Zain had too strong of a hand.
After he'd been at his business for a while, one of the advertising companies he bought
ad space off discovered that he was a cybercriminal.
When the company confronted him, Zain antagonized them by threatening to harm the company's
employees.
Behind Bars
Not to be intimidated, one of the ad companies reported to the police- in a rare case where
the ad company was actually the hero.
And that was when Zain's goose was cooked.
The NCA got on his trail and worked with partners in the US, Canada, Europe, and the Crown Prosecution
Service to track him down and arrest him.
He was hit with eleven charges including blackmail, fraud, computer offenses, and possessing criminal
property.
At first, Zain pled not guilty, but he eventually switched his plea and was sentenced to six
years in jail.
He was also ordered to pay back around £270,000 pounds in restitution.
Click to watch one of these next videos!
Let us know in the comment section who your favorite fictional mob character ever portrayed
was!