A Miami-Dade man pleaded guilty on Thursday to stealing about $14 million using fraudulent checks made out to sham companies, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
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Officials say Eri Guzman Ortiz, 69, was sent lists by a client in Canada of “thousands of people and businesses who had purportedly made purchases from sham companies” and agreed to be charged by those companies.
He then used the lists to make fraudulent checks and deposit them into bank accounts for the sham companies, “knowing that these people and businesses had not made purchases… and had not authorized debits from their bank accounts,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
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“Eri Guzman Ortiz used fraudulent checks totaling approximately $14 million to reach into the bank accounts of thousands of people and businesses who never authorized the transactions,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. “He created sham companies and fabricated transactions to make systematic theft look legitimate. This guilty plea reflects our commitment, alongside the Fraud Section, USPIS, and FDIC-OIG, to protect the integrity of our financial system and hold sophisticated fraudsters accountable.”
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, officials said.
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