{"id":59993,"date":"2025-11-05T15:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T23:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=59993"},"modified":"2025-11-05T15:55:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T23:55:46","slug":"feds-arrests-five-fugitives-wanted-by-germany-for-e300-million-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=59993","title":{"rendered":"Feds Arrests Five Fugitives Wanted by Germany for More than $300 Million Fraud Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\" data-start=\"81\" data-end=\"295\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" data-start=\"81\" data-end=\"295\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7843 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/United-States-Marshals-Service-Star-Badge.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"247\" \/>Federal authorities in California arrested five fugitives wanted by Germany for allegedly orchestrating a massive fraud that stole more than $300 million through fake credit card charges and illicit payment networks, officials announced Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" data-start=\"297\" data-end=\"551\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">The suspects \u2014 Californians Medhat Mourid, Andrew Garroni, Guy Mizrachi, Ardeshir Akhavan, and Canadian Tunde Benak \u2014 were taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service and appeared in federal court in Los Angeles. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" data-start=\"297\" data-end=\"551\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">Germany is seeking their extradition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" data-start=\"553\" data-end=\"803\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">Prosecutors allege the group created fictitious online merchants and billed small recurring charges\u2014typically under \u20ac50\u2014to avoid detection. These payments were funneled through corrupt German payment processors, forming a \u201cshadow financial system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" data-start=\"805\" data-end=\"1055\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">The U.S. Justice Department\u2019s Office of International Affairs coordinated the arrests with German prosecutors. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" data-start=\"805\" data-end=\"1055\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">The takedown coincided with related actions in Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Cyprus, the Netherlands, the U.K., Canada, and Singapore.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON Federal authorities in California arrested five fugitives wanted by Germany for allegedly orchestrating a massive fraud that stole more than $300 million through fake credit card charges and illicit payment networks,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Feds Arrests Five Fugitives Wanted by Germany for More than $300 Million Fraud Scheme<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"WASHINGTON Federal authorities in California arrested five fugitives wanted by Germany for allegedly orchestrating a massive fraud that stole more than\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=59993\" \/>\n<meta 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