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Diamond District Operators From NJ, Long Island Busted In $673M Money Laundering Scheme: Feds
Four businessmen from New Jersey and one from Long Island laundered millions of dollars a day in cash through fronts they set up in New York City’s Diamond District, federal authorities charged.
Federal agents tied the quintet to $673 million in dirty money laundered through the illicit operations over the past four years, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said.
In exchange, Raj Vaidya, 26; Rakesh Vaidya, 51; Shrey Vaidya, 23; and Neel Patel, 26, all of Edison; and Youssef Janfar, aka “Joe Rodeo,” 57, of Great Neck, NY collected sizable fees, he said.
The three Vaidyas and P…
Hackensack Teacher From Oradell Charged With Pocketing $300,000 In Ponzi Scheme
A Hackensack schoolteacher from Oradell ran a Ponzi scheme that fleeced investors of $300,000 that she used for herself, authorities announced Monday.
Suzette Hart, 54, “solicited multiple investors for various high-yield, well-known investment opportunities knowing that the investments were fraudulent” over a five-year period, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
Hart, who most recently taught at Hackensack’s Fairmount School, then “disbursed money from one investor to other investors, which reinforced the deception that the investor’s money had been properly invested and was produc…
Bergen Pair Charged With Laundering $5.7 Million
The owners of several businesses in Leonia and Palisades Park laundered $5.7 million to avoid paying taxes on it, said authorities who busted them.
Guatemalan nationals Juan Quevedo-Garcia, 40, and Magda Quevedo-Garcia, 35, were booked into the Bergen County Jail on Thursday and ordered released by a judge hours later, records show.
Both are scheduled for first appearances Monday in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack.
Juan Quevedo-Garcia, of Fairview, owns commercial framing and excavation businesses in Palisades Park, while Magda Quevedo-Garcia, of Palisades Park, owns and op…
Fair Lawn Businessman Charged With Pocketing $250G From Investor
A self-employed Fair Lawn contractor embezzled $250,000 from an investor, authorities charged.
Wilfried Werner, 56, who also works in real estate, received the money as a property investment but used it for himself instead, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
Members of Musella’s Financial Crimes Unit arrested him in Fair Lawn on Tuesday, the prosecutor said.
Werner, previously of Wyckoff, was charged with theft by deception and released pending an Aug. 7 a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack, the prosecutor said.
Records show several judgments agai…
Prosecutor: Woodcliff Lake Court-Appointed Guardian Pocketed $50,000 From Incapacitated Wade
A construction foreman from Woodcliff Lake serving as a court-appointed guardian pocketed $50,000 from his incapacitated ward and a second victim, said authorities who arrested him.
Over the past 4½ years, Darren Pavesi “used his ward’s financial assets for his own benefit, misappropriating funds to make unauthorized payments to himself and to pay his own personal expenses,” Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Dennis Calo said Friday.
Pavesi, 55, of Prospect Avenue, was charged with two counts of theft following an investigation by Calo’s Financial Crimes Unit, the prosecutor said.
He was rele…
Dumont Tax Preparer Fleeced Family Of $200,000, Authorities Charge
DUMONT, N.J. – A tax preparer from Dumont swindled a family out of $200,000, said authorities who arrested him Tuesday.
Stephen Adler, 75, “misappropriated the victims’ money for his own personal use," Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Dennis Calo said.
Calo said members of his Financial Crimes Unit last June “received a complaint from a family who had lost approximately $200,000 in what they believed to be an investment scheme operated by their tax preparer.”
Between 2014 and 2015, he said, Adler “persuaded them to invest in what he described as a secure investment vehicle [that] would…
