“The head of crypto-trading platform Zort, Adam Iza, paid three employees of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) $280,000 per month to illegally issue search warrants and access police data. This is stated in the FBI indictment. The confession is that Iza paid $280,000 a month to the police. Source: FBI. He is accused of using the police and obtaining information to get the alleged victim (identified in the documents as EZ) to surrender […]”, — write: businessua.com.ua
The head of crypto-trading platform Zort, Adam Iza, paid three Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) officers $280,000 per month to illegally issue search warrants and access to police data. This is stated in the FBI indictment.
The confession is that Iza paid $280,000 a month to the police. Source: FBI.
He is accused of using police and information to get the alleged victim (identified in the documents as EZ) to hand over a laptop used to store cryptocurrencies.
Bad dealAccording to a November 2021 Riverside County Sheriff’s Department report, EZ had known Iza for two years and was involved in a crypto business. Once he was giving a ride to his partner and he asked to stop to buy food. After that, an SUV drove up to them, two men got out of it, one with a gun. He told them both to get into the car.
EZ ran away and called the police, believing he was being kidnapped to steal cryptocurrency.
Iza told the officer who arrived on the scene that EZ had agreed to pay $300,000 for the digital assets, but he had brought bodyguards with him as a backup.
The men in the SUV were former LASD officers, one of whom is an ex-sheriff’s deputy who owns a security firm and works for Iza. He kept his gun at the ready as he was allegedly warned that EZ was armed.
BlackmailAfter the incident, EZ was “intimidated and harassed” by Iza. He claims he received threatening messages with information about him from a police database. The photos included “the top of an LASD business card,” the victim’s family and cars.
The complaint also alleges that Iza sent a hired private investigator “photographs of classified law enforcement data” and an image of “a GPS search warrant for a phone number believed to belong to the victim.”
In one of the messages, Iza called law enforcement officers “pawns”. Source: FBI.
The FBI said it later discovered a search warrant with the number EZ issued by an LASD deputy. He was accused of receiving money from Iza.
AccusationThe complaint alleges payments to three Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies, sometimes totaling nearly $200,000, through Iza’s crypto company and other businesses owned by his girlfriend at the time.
One of the people interviewed by authorities said that Iza and EZ broke into his home, with the former impersonating an FBI agent. Iza was accused of stealing a laptop containing cryptocurrency and holding the alleged victim at gunpoint to obtain a password.
Zort’s co-founder is also accused of hiding tens of millions of dollars in income and tax evasion.
It will be recalled that in September, the cyber police of Ukraine detained four citizens suspected of extorting 250,000 USDT (10 million hryvnias) from the owner of an online business.
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