After admitting they participated in a scheme to steal more than $900,000 from eight credit unions and 13 banks, six persons from New Mexico and Texas pleaded guilty to various financial fraud felonies last week in U.S. District Court in El Paso, Texas.
Michael Nedal Annabi, 39, and his wife, Perla Maldonado Annabi, 34, of Santa Teresa, N.M., and four other defendants obtained loans and lines of credit after providing the financial institutions with fake personal and income information, according to federal prosecutors.
Court documents show the fraudsters over three years beginning in 2013 applied for loans or lines of credit that ranged from $5,000 to $40,000.
Michael and Perla Annabi pleaded guilty to bank fraud and wire fraud, prosecutors said.
In addition, Jenzel Nash, 25, of El Paso, Texas pleaded guilty to making false statements on loan applications, Terrance Yelder, 26, also of El Paso, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, Miguel Munoz, 30, of Santa Teresa, Texas, pleaded guilty to making false statements on a loan application, and Basem Elgelda, 34, of Petaluma, Calif., also pleaded guilty to making false statements on a loan application.
Litigation is pending against the remaining co-defendant in this case, 21-year-old Daniel Munoz of Santa Teresa. Munoz is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and making a false on a loan application.
According to court documents, credit unions victimized by the fraud scheme included the $479 million PrimeWay FCU in Houston, the $633 million El Paso Area Teachers FCU, the $296 million White Sands FCU in Las Cruces, N.M., the $22.8 billion Pentagon FCU in Tysons Corner, Va., the $2.6 billion GECU in El Paso, the $1 billion FirstLight FCU in El Paso, the $9.5 billion Security Service FCU in San Antonio, and the $306 million Evolve FCU in El Paso.
Banks that were victimized were Springleaf Financial Services, OneMain Financial, Synchrony Financial, State Far Bank, Barclays Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Santander Consumer USA, Citibank, Ally Financial, BMW Financial Services, Bank of the West, BBVA Compass and Discovery Financial Services, according to court documents.
This is the second fraud scheme that has victimized multiple credit unions and banks in less than a month.
In March, three people stole more than $1 million in auto loans from some of the nation’s largest credit unions and banks, according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, N.C. In addition, one of the three accused suspects also stole up to $1.5 million in home equity lines of credit from three credit unions.