Date: Feb. 6, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
HOUSTON — A California man has admitted to operating an illegal money transmitting business, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Victor Rubio, Jr. admitted that from 2021 to 2022, he operated an unlicensed money transmitting business that received and transmitted funds from a business email compromise (BEC) scheme. Rubio ran the unlicensed money transmitting business by using shell companies that existed only on paper.
As part of the plea, Rubio acknowledged opening and maintaining bank accounts to collect money from at least two victims in a BEC scheme, including a healthcare liability insurance company headquartered in Georgia and a township in New Jersey. Then, for a fee, he transmitted the fraud proceeds to co-conspirators.
In response to fraudulent wire instructions from spoofed email accounts, victims sent interstate wire transfers for payment to Rubio instead of to the true creditors to whom the victims owed money.
More than 45 people in multiple states, including Rubio and seven others in the Southern District of Texas, have been charged in separate business email compromise schemes that affected numerous victims.
U.S. District Judge George Hanks will impose sentencing April 22. At that time, Rubio faces up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine.
He was permitted to remain on bond pending that hearing.
The IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and FBI - Bryan Resident Agency conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Belinda Beek and Thomas Carter are prosecuting the case.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.