Virginia Man Faces Sentencing in Credit Union Fraud Scheme

A Virginia man will be sentenced in January for his involvement in a fraud scheme that led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for Navy Federal Credit Union, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk.

Taimak Peters, 28, pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in U.S. District Court last week.

Peters and three other coconspirators obtained personal ID – names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses – of victims and assumed their identities to open member accounts at Navy Federal. After the accounts obtained online login credentials, Peters and coconspirators texted this information to Raven Dixon who played a central role in the fraud scheme, according to court documents.

Dixon then search websites such as Auto Trader to find cars for sale. After finding “suitable cars,” prosecutors wrote in court documents, she used that information to submit loan applications. Dixon recruited friends and acquaintances to act as “sellers” of the cars.

After the loans were approved, Dixon had the Vienna, Va.-based Navy Federal issue checks payable in the names of the ID theft victims and to the “sellers” she recruited. Co-conspirators who posed as one of their ID theft victims went to a Navy Federal branch to pick up the check, which was then handed over to one of the auto sellers, who took it to yet another Navy Federal branch to cash it. The money was split among the co-conspirators.

This somewhat elaborate fraud scheme was short-lived, lasting only from April to July in 2018. The total loss for the $159 billion Navy Federal was more than $305,000, prosecutors said.

Earlier, Dixon, 29, was sentenced to 81 months in prison, while coconspirators, Ryan Eugene Gregory, 38, and Thomas Jules Rogers, 33, were sentenced to 54 and 57 months in prison, respectively.