Credit Unions Help Investigators Bust $1 Million Loan Fraud Ring

Credit unions helped New York police investigators bust a $1 million loan fraud ring that led to the arrest of five people, including a former Capital One banker and the fraud ringleader who operated a credit repair business from his Brooklyn apartment.

Long Island’s Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas and United States Postal Inspector in Charge, Philip R. Bartlett, said Friday that while the five suspects attempted to steal more than $1 million, they successfully siphoned $250,000.

The amount of stolen credit union funds is expected to increase, however, as investigators sort through all of the evidence recovered from search warrants executed at the apartment of Dascon Sears, 36, or Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, who ran the credit repair business and four other suspects.

The fraud conspiracy scheme targeted the $3.1 billion Nassau Educators Federal Credit Union in Westbury, N.Y, the $24.4 billion Pentagon Federal Credit Union in McLean, Va., the $8.5 billion Digital Credit Union in Marlborough, Mass, the $351 million Comtrust Federal Credit Union in Chattanooga, Tenn., and the $96.9 billion Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna, Va.

One of the suspects, Summer Aboushady, 26, of Jackson Heights Queens, was a former Capital One banker. She is accused of stealing account information and selling it to the other members of the ring. While employed at Capital One, Aboushady allegedly opened accounts for Sears in the names of the stolen identities so that he could deposit the stolen credit union loan into bank accounts, according to investigators.

DA Singas said that from February 2018 to February 2019, Sears allegedly submitted more than 100 credit union loan applications online. The suspects allegedly conspired to take out loans ranging from $7,500 to $35,000 by using the stolen identities of hundreds of individuals with good credit.

Sears and the other suspects allegedly used these individuals’ identities and ran their credit reports to obtain additional information about the victims from the dark web. The investigation also revealed that the defendants allegedly obtained the identities of the victims from various sources including school and hospital websites.

In many of the cases, a money order was used to open the loan and once the credit union approved it, the loan money was deposited into bank accounts opened in the victims’ names, police investigators said. Sears also allegedly opened credit card accounts in the victims’ names.

The fraud scheme surfaced when the credit unions became aware of certain loans that were in arrears. Credit union employees discovered that people who they thought they lent the money to were identity theft victims unaware their identities were stolen. One of the credit unions, NEFCU, then reported their financial losses to police.

In addition to Sears and Aboushady, three additional suspects who were arrested included Nyantakyi Boateng, 32, of Perth Amboy, N.J., Konstantinos Toikas, 28, of Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, and Amber Mantock, 25, of Astoria, Queens.

All of the suspects face various felony fraud charges.

Sears, Boateng, Mantock and Toikas are accused of withdrawing the loan proceeds from ATMs and spending the money on personal expenses including car loans, rent and airline tickets, investigators said.