53°
Three years into a mandatory four-year New Jersey state prison sentence for kidnapping an online critic, the 28-year-old Instagrifter from Bergen County agreed to rat out his friends in exchange for leniency in a federal fraud case in Brooklyn.
Trouble is: He didn’t deliver much, authorities said.
Mazini, whose real name is Jebara Igbara, ended up sentenced to seven years in federal prison for a series of scams.
He did catch a break of sorts, however.Because there’s no parole in the federal prison system, Igbara must serve a little over six years of his sentence before being eligible for release. But as part of his deal with the government, his federal sentence is running in time with the current state stretch.
If not for the federal case, Igbara would have maxed out of his New Jersey state prison term at Fort Dix in June 2025, New Jersey Department of Corrections records show.
Under the plea-bargained sentence imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Frederic Block in Brooklyn, he’s now looking at a Christmastime 2027 release.
That’s only if potential time off for good behavior isn’t factored in, however. He may end up released sooner if it is.
The federal judge also required Igbara to forfeit $10 million as restitution.
Igbara, who lives in the Hudson River town of Edgewater just south of the George Washington Bridge, became known as a philanthropist who went out of his way to help those in need.
It was an image, the government said, that belied the truth.
Trading on his cyber celebrity status, Igbara orchestrated multimillion-dollar Ponzi and Bitcoin scams through a company he called Halal-Capital LLC, federal prosecutors said.
His victims: fellow Muslims, they said.
Igbara got them to pay him for “purported investments in stock, electronics resale and the sale of personal protective equipment,” according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
He then blew investors’ hard-earned money on luxury vehicles, jewelry and gambling, among other personal expenses, federal authorities said.
Igbara turned around and offered above-market prices for cryptocurrencies on his Instagram account and other social media.
Igbara promised to wire Bitcoin to several victims and didn’t follow through, federal authorities said. Some got bogus wire transfers, while others simply got stiffed without even an excuse, they said.
“Igbara was a crypto con man,” said Thomas Fattorusso, the special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation New York Field Office.
“He not only created a fake online presence to purport that he was a wealthy crypto investor,” Fattorusso said. “He used his Instagram persona as proof of success when convincing his unsuspecting victims to invest in his schemes.
“He conned a New York Muslim community out of millions, then simply spent it and gambled it away,” the IRS SAC said. “Igbara had no regard for the victims he affected.”
Rather than risk the potential outcome of a trial, Igbara took a deal from the government, pleading guilty to federal wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering charges in November 2022.
He also agreed to sing about his accomplices in the hopes of reducing his sentence, authorities said.
In the end, Igbara’s purported intel “didn’t amount to what we would consider substantial assistance,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Elbert of the Eastern District of New York said.
He still made out relatively OK given the circumstances.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Cherry Hill and receive free news updates.
