Plattsburgh, NY – Stefan Chernev, 49, a Bulgarian national, today pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit international money laundering.
United States Attorney Carla B. Friedman; Ketty Larco-Ward, United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Inspector General, Boston Division; The announcement was made by Matthew Scarpino, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Buffalo Field Office.
Chernev admitted to setting up a shell company in collaboration with his brother Ivan Chernev and a third co-conspirator. Most of the companies’ names included some variation of “Yellow Pages.”
From approximately 2011 to 2015, Stefan Chernev, Ivan Chernev, and a third co-conspirator used shell companies to collect false invoices from health care providers, churches, and small businesses across the United States, including parts of the upstate New York area. and stole money. Revealing to the victim that he or she has ordered online advertising services even though the victim has never ordered or provided online advertising services. When the victims did not pay the fake bills, Stefan Chernev and his co-conspirators sent them fake collection notices. They instructed the victims to mail checks to various post office boxes throughout the United States that were rented by Stefan Chernev and his co-conspirators. He then instructed the mail forwarding company that rented the post office box to forward the checks to a post office box in Canada or to a mail forwarding company near the Canadian border in upstate New York.
Once Stefan Chernev, Ivan Chernev and a third co-conspirator received the checks, they deposited them into bank accounts they controlled in Canada. In total, they stole at least $1.24 million from victims across the United States.
Chernev could be sentenced on March 25, 2024 by Senior U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. to up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and up to three years of supervised release. There is. Chernev will also be ordered to pay compensation to the victims.
Ivan Chernev also pleaded guilty to similar charges and was sentenced to 68 months in prison on December 3, 2020.
USPIS, HSI, and the Federal Trade Commission investigated this incident. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine Kopita and Alexander Wentworth Pinn are prosecuting the case. Stefan Chernev was extradited from Germany to the United States in May 2022 with the assistance of the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.