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On April 7, the federal prosecutor's office for the Eastern District of California announced the arrest of 33-year-old Armen Mkhitaryan, who is accused of fraud with banks and credit cards, for which he faces up to 30 years in prison and up to a million dollars in fines, but until the court ruling he is presumed innocent.
Mkhitaryan, 33, lives in Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb with a population of approximately 205,000, more than a third of whom are Armenians. The day after the arrest of Armen Mkhitaryan, he was virtually taken to magistrate judge Shile Oberto, where his rights were explained via video link, state lawyer Rina Harrion-Hammershidt was provided, and he pleaded not guilty, after which he was released without bail, pledging to hand over his passport and not apply for a new one, and also not to leave California and arrive at court on April 14 when Judge Stanley Boone determines the measure of restraint of his freedom.
The 33 counts of accusation, with the arguments of which the grand jury agreed on April 13 last year, indicate on 29 pages that almost 5 years ago Armen Mkhitaryan stole more than 160 thousand dollars in a very simple way. The prosecution's foreword explains what a "means of access" to money in a bank account is, that is, a legal credit or debit card in the name of its owner, presented by the owner himself. An “unauthorized means of access” is a card that has been lost, stolen, invalid or obtained for the purpose of defrauding the bank, and a “fake access means” is a card that is fake, altered or altered to another name, again with a criminal purpose. In addition, the prosecution clarifies that a "skimming device" or skimmer is a device that is installed on a panel or inside an ATM,
Possessing such “reading devices”, the acquisition or manufacture of which were not specified in the accusation, Armen Mkhitaryan installed them in vending machines for stamps from May 9 to August 31 and removed the data of Bank of America, Bank of West, Chase Bank cardholders. Citibank, Golden One Credit Union, MUFG Union Bank, Navy Federal Credit Union, Westamerica Bank, USAA Federal Savings Bank and others, receiving $ 47 sets of stamps everywhere. Deposits in these banks are protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the FBI was in charge of the Mkhitaryan case. It was found that in one day on May 9, 2016, he "served" the post office machine in the town of Clovis in the Californian county of Fresno 29 times, using the data of cards for different names with different numbers. I multiplied 29 by 47 and got 1363 dollars, that is, therefore, stamps for another 237 dollars Armen received somewhere else. Where he is of their business is also not reported, but postage stamps in any self-respecting country are considered a stable equivalent of currency and even replace it in times of crisis and inflation.
The day before the arrest of the Armenian Mkhitaryan on the West Coast of the United States in the federal court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on the East Coast, a Latvian and citizen of this Baltic republic Edgar Ivulans, who did the same thing as Mkhitaryan, was sentenced to 65 months in prison. In addition to a prison sentence, Judge Barclay Serric ordered Ivulance to pay $ 12,754 in damages, fined the same amount and ordered him to pay $ 4,000 in legal costs. In a memorandum before the verdict, his public attorney Angela Halim indicated that at the time of the indictment, Edgar Ivulance was not in the United States, and from 2017 to 2019 he worked as the manager of a car rental company at Dublin International Airport in Ireland. In early 2019, he flew home to Latvia to visit his wife and mother, and was arrested in Germany on February 2. when transferring to another plane. As it turned out, Edgar Ivulance was long awaited in the federal court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the order for his arrest was signed by Magistrate Judge Richard Lloret on October 27, 2016.
Ivulance spent four months in a German prison. He was extradited to the United States on June 6, 2019, and on the same day, the Department of Homeland Security recommended that immigration authorities take him into custody, where he has been held for 26 months, and will be deported upon release. He is not on the database of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but according to his lawyer, during the pandemic, Ivulance was placed in a "Federal Detention Center" where he is held in "horrifying, frightening and isolated conditions."
On June 15, 2020, Ivulance pleaded guilty to all counts of the charges brought against him: mail fraud and wire transfer of money; manufacture, use and possession of a device for fraudulent purposes money laundering and identity theft. "Identity theft crimes like these are devastating and lasting for their victims," said Jennifer Williams, Interim District Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "Ivulance's crimes are especially offensive, as he committed them after two convictions for other fraud that led to his deportation."
Without going into details, a press release from the prosecutor's office explains that in the past Ivulans lived in the United States, where he was twice tried in federal court in Illinois for fraud and then deported to his homeland in Latvia. Without contesting this, his lawyer Angela Halim stated in a pre-sentencing memorandum that on February 13, 2005, Edgar Ivulance was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and speeding, which is considered a misdemeanor, and sentenced to one year of supervision. One way or another, the prosecution claims, returning to his homeland, Edgar did not quit, but continued to engage in "sophisticated fraud" in relation to the United States.
More details on this are to be reported in the preliminary indictment (affidavit), but this document is not available. It is reported that Ivulance “used stolen personal data of US citizens and received credit cards in their names, which he sent to an accomplice in Philadelphia. Who this accomplice is is unknown, but in the memorandum of the lawyer Halim the surname "Matesoviks" flashes, which may well be Matusevich in the Latvian way. Ivulance’s Philadelphia accomplice bought various goods with credit cards received from him, which he either sold or returned to stores and received their value. He transferred the received money to accomplices in Russia or Ireland, from where Edgar Ivulans received his share.
“While in Latvia,” says the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Federal Attorney's Office, “Ivulance, using data from US citizens, also produced new counterfeit credit cards and sent a tape reader to an accomplice in Philadelphia, which was used to create new counterfeit credit cards, which were used to purchase prepaid debit cards and other goods ”. These goods were sent to Ivulance's accomplices in Sweden, Ukraine and personally to him in Latvia. When the Latvian authorities, in cooperation with the FBI, searched Ivulans' house, more than 12,000 credit card numbers and at least 10 complete personal data of US residents were found in his computer. " To this, the lawyer Angela Halim wrote to Judge Barclay Serrick before the verdict that, according to her client, he was not “an organizer, a leader, manager or leader of criminal activity, but worked in tandem with accomplices, without giving instructions to others. " Each member of the group made independent decisions for the sake of a common goal, and when this goal brought another profit, the money was divided between the partners, and then Matesoviks-Matusevich made the decisions.
After all, the Internet is a great force, and in the work schedule of 84-year-old Judge Barclay Serrick, who was appointed 21 years ago by President Bill Clinton, I came across the case "United States v. Arthurs Matesovics." Matesoviks, who lives in the Irish capital Dublin, is listed as an accomplice of Edgar Ivulance, but he is being tried separately. At the end of August 2019, he pleaded guilty, and the verdict was set for April 13 last year, but has not yet been announced. The last decision in his case was made by Judge Serric on February 25 this year, obliging Matesoviks to pay $ 6,400 for the services of an interpreter before and during his plea. I haven’t come across such a thing before, but the venerable Barclay Serrick knows better.
Mkhitaryan, 33, lives in Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb with a population of approximately 205,000, more than a third of whom are Armenians. The day after the arrest of Armen Mkhitaryan, he was virtually taken to magistrate judge Shile Oberto, where his rights were explained via video link, state lawyer Rina Harrion-Hammershidt was provided, and he pleaded not guilty, after which he was released without bail, pledging to hand over his passport and not apply for a new one, and also not to leave California and arrive at court on April 14 when Judge Stanley Boone determines the measure of restraint of his freedom.
The 33 counts of accusation, with the arguments of which the grand jury agreed on April 13 last year, indicate on 29 pages that almost 5 years ago Armen Mkhitaryan stole more than 160 thousand dollars in a very simple way. The prosecution's foreword explains what a "means of access" to money in a bank account is, that is, a legal credit or debit card in the name of its owner, presented by the owner himself. An “unauthorized means of access” is a card that has been lost, stolen, invalid or obtained for the purpose of defrauding the bank, and a “fake access means” is a card that is fake, altered or altered to another name, again with a criminal purpose. In addition, the prosecution clarifies that a "skimming device" or skimmer is a device that is installed on a panel or inside an ATM,
Possessing such “reading devices”, the acquisition or manufacture of which were not specified in the accusation, Armen Mkhitaryan installed them in vending machines for stamps from May 9 to August 31 and removed the data of Bank of America, Bank of West, Chase Bank cardholders. Citibank, Golden One Credit Union, MUFG Union Bank, Navy Federal Credit Union, Westamerica Bank, USAA Federal Savings Bank and others, receiving $ 47 sets of stamps everywhere. Deposits in these banks are protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the FBI was in charge of the Mkhitaryan case. It was found that in one day on May 9, 2016, he "served" the post office machine in the town of Clovis in the Californian county of Fresno 29 times, using the data of cards for different names with different numbers. I multiplied 29 by 47 and got 1363 dollars, that is, therefore, stamps for another 237 dollars Armen received somewhere else. Where he is of their business is also not reported, but postage stamps in any self-respecting country are considered a stable equivalent of currency and even replace it in times of crisis and inflation.
The day before the arrest of the Armenian Mkhitaryan on the West Coast of the United States in the federal court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on the East Coast, a Latvian and citizen of this Baltic republic Edgar Ivulans, who did the same thing as Mkhitaryan, was sentenced to 65 months in prison. In addition to a prison sentence, Judge Barclay Serric ordered Ivulance to pay $ 12,754 in damages, fined the same amount and ordered him to pay $ 4,000 in legal costs. In a memorandum before the verdict, his public attorney Angela Halim indicated that at the time of the indictment, Edgar Ivulance was not in the United States, and from 2017 to 2019 he worked as the manager of a car rental company at Dublin International Airport in Ireland. In early 2019, he flew home to Latvia to visit his wife and mother, and was arrested in Germany on February 2. when transferring to another plane. As it turned out, Edgar Ivulance was long awaited in the federal court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the order for his arrest was signed by Magistrate Judge Richard Lloret on October 27, 2016.
Ivulance spent four months in a German prison. He was extradited to the United States on June 6, 2019, and on the same day, the Department of Homeland Security recommended that immigration authorities take him into custody, where he has been held for 26 months, and will be deported upon release. He is not on the database of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but according to his lawyer, during the pandemic, Ivulance was placed in a "Federal Detention Center" where he is held in "horrifying, frightening and isolated conditions."
On June 15, 2020, Ivulance pleaded guilty to all counts of the charges brought against him: mail fraud and wire transfer of money; manufacture, use and possession of a device for fraudulent purposes money laundering and identity theft. "Identity theft crimes like these are devastating and lasting for their victims," said Jennifer Williams, Interim District Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "Ivulance's crimes are especially offensive, as he committed them after two convictions for other fraud that led to his deportation."
Without going into details, a press release from the prosecutor's office explains that in the past Ivulans lived in the United States, where he was twice tried in federal court in Illinois for fraud and then deported to his homeland in Latvia. Without contesting this, his lawyer Angela Halim stated in a pre-sentencing memorandum that on February 13, 2005, Edgar Ivulance was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and speeding, which is considered a misdemeanor, and sentenced to one year of supervision. One way or another, the prosecution claims, returning to his homeland, Edgar did not quit, but continued to engage in "sophisticated fraud" in relation to the United States.
More details on this are to be reported in the preliminary indictment (affidavit), but this document is not available. It is reported that Ivulance “used stolen personal data of US citizens and received credit cards in their names, which he sent to an accomplice in Philadelphia. Who this accomplice is is unknown, but in the memorandum of the lawyer Halim the surname "Matesoviks" flashes, which may well be Matusevich in the Latvian way. Ivulance’s Philadelphia accomplice bought various goods with credit cards received from him, which he either sold or returned to stores and received their value. He transferred the received money to accomplices in Russia or Ireland, from where Edgar Ivulans received his share.
“While in Latvia,” says the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Federal Attorney's Office, “Ivulance, using data from US citizens, also produced new counterfeit credit cards and sent a tape reader to an accomplice in Philadelphia, which was used to create new counterfeit credit cards, which were used to purchase prepaid debit cards and other goods ”. These goods were sent to Ivulance's accomplices in Sweden, Ukraine and personally to him in Latvia. When the Latvian authorities, in cooperation with the FBI, searched Ivulans' house, more than 12,000 credit card numbers and at least 10 complete personal data of US residents were found in his computer. " To this, the lawyer Angela Halim wrote to Judge Barclay Serrick before the verdict that, according to her client, he was not “an organizer, a leader, manager or leader of criminal activity, but worked in tandem with accomplices, without giving instructions to others. " Each member of the group made independent decisions for the sake of a common goal, and when this goal brought another profit, the money was divided between the partners, and then Matesoviks-Matusevich made the decisions.
After all, the Internet is a great force, and in the work schedule of 84-year-old Judge Barclay Serrick, who was appointed 21 years ago by President Bill Clinton, I came across the case "United States v. Arthurs Matesovics." Matesoviks, who lives in the Irish capital Dublin, is listed as an accomplice of Edgar Ivulance, but he is being tried separately. At the end of August 2019, he pleaded guilty, and the verdict was set for April 13 last year, but has not yet been announced. The last decision in his case was made by Judge Serric on February 25 this year, obliging Matesoviks to pay $ 6,400 for the services of an interpreter before and during his plea. I haven’t come across such a thing before, but the venerable Barclay Serrick knows better.