Florida man pleads guilty in $14 million fraudulent check scheme

A Florida man pleaded guilty to wire fraud after admitting he created and deposited roughly $14 million in fraudulent checks to steal money from victims’ bank accounts without their authorization, according to court documents.

Eri Guzman Ortiz, 69, formerly of Miami-Dade County, deposited the fraudulent checks into U.S. bank accounts belonging to sham companies, prosecutors said. The checks were used to funnel money out of victims’ accounts and into the sham companies’ accounts without authorization from the account holders, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said Guzman Ortiz received lists from a client in Canada identifying thousands of individuals and businesses who had supposedly made purchases from the sham companies and had supposedly agreed to have their bank accounts debited. In reality, according to court documents, these people and businesses had never made such purchases and had never authorized any debits. Guzman Ortiz used the lists to generate the fraudulent checks and deposit them into the sham companies’ accounts, prosecutors said, despite knowing the underlying transactions were fabricated.

Guzman Ortiz pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 5 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the Justice Department. Any sentence will be determined by a federal district court judge after weighing the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, officials said.

The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida; Inspector in Charge Eric Shen of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Criminal Investigations Group; and Special Agent in Charge Vincent R. Zehme of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General’s Chicago Region.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FDIC Office of Inspector General are investigating the case, officials said.

Trial Attorneys Daniel Zytnick and Anna Forgie of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case, according to the Justice Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Grosnoff for the Southern District of Florida is handling forfeiture matters.

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