Federal prosecutors call him “The Godfather” and, like a legendary mafia boss, he supposedly had police officers on his payroll to carry out his criminal investigations.
According to a federal criminal complaint, the man who ran a cryptocurrency trading platform called Zort allegedly paid several Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies (sometimes tens of thousands of dollars) to carry out illegal searches and arrests as part of of an extortion plot. .
According to the complaint, Izza hid millions of dollars from taxpayers by failing to report income and funneling money through shell companies with associates. He is said to have spent the money on numerous luxury cars, including a Lamborghini Aventador and a Rolls Royce Phantom, around a million on rent in Bel Air, and around $64,000 on cosmetic surgery to lengthen his legs.
Iza is accused of conspiracy against rights and tax evasion. Authorities arrested him on Sept. 23, according to federal court documents. He was ordered to appear before a judge on Oct. 8, records show.
“Things are not like that,” said Josef Sodat, the lawyer representing Izza in the federal case. “The truth will come out, hopefully soon.”
According to the complaint, Izza pays law enforcement $280,000 a month in “active duty” pay.
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on whether the agents, who were not named in the complaint, would face charges.
Several deputies, including the department’s investigator. a well-known anti-gang unit, were recently fired from their position in connection with the federal investigation, officials said earlier this week. The Sheriff’s Department confirmed that the action was related to an investigation “involving the United States Attorney’s Office.”
“These egregious allegations are contrary to the values and mission of our Department,” the agency said in a statement Thursday. “People who use their badge as a license to abuse their authority for personal gain through illegal behavior have no place in law enforcement and must be held accountable.”
The board said it was cooperating fully with the investigation, adding: “Once we have all the details of this case, we will assess actions internally to ensure this behavior does not occur again.”
Tom Yu, an attorney for one of the three current attorneys named in the complaint, told The Times that his client has not been arrested and emphasized that he is currently only being investigated.
“I don’t think he did anything criminal,” Yu said.
Cryptocurrency war
Days before Thanksgiving 2021, the complaint alleges, Iza was involved in an attempted kidnapping and robbery in Riverside County that caught the attention of the FBI.
The intended target, federal investigators say, was a business associate of Izza, identified only as “EZ.”
The two men had known each other for about two years and recently discussed a business deal involving a cryptocurrency platform and healthcare, according to the complaint.
On November 21, 2021, according to a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department report reviewed by the FBI, EZ was driving his car with Iza in the back seat when Iza asked to stop at a gas station to buy food.
Then, while the two men were in the back of the car with the trunk open, a pickup truck pulled up and two people, later identified by authorities as a former Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy and a former detention officer, got out, according to the complaint. One of the men reportedly approached with a gun and told EZ to “get in the car.”
Instead, EZ turned around, ran, and then called 911. He later told investigators that he thought Izza was trying to kidnap him to access digital assets stored on his phone.
A responding Riverside sheriff’s deputy interviewed Iza, who stated that he was the one who feared being kidnapped.
Izza told Deputy EZ that he would give him $300,000 in cryptocurrency, but as they walked away, Izza became worried about where they were really going and texted his bodyguards for help.
When a Riverside officer spoke to the men in the van, they told a similar story. One of them, a former Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy who used a gun during the incident, said he owned a security company and had worked for Iza for about two weeks. He told investigators that he was supposed to pick up Izza at a restaurant after a business meeting when he received a text message from Izza that said, “Follow me.”
When the former deputy arrived at the gas station, he pulled out his gun because he feared EZ might be armed, according to the complaint. Instead, EZ was found to be carrying an electric screwdriver, according to the complaint.
Riverside County authorities decided the information was not enough to warrant an arrest, although the complaint says EZ felt threatened in the weeks that followed.
On December 2, 2021, EZ allegedly received several threatening text messages from an unknown number showing images of his personal information in a police database. Next to it was part of a passport from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
About two weeks later, according to a letter from EZ’s lawyer to authorities, Iza and her bodyguards showed up at the home of one of her associates looking for EZ. The visit came shortly after EZ received another threatening text message, using Iza’s phone number, demanding he hand over his cryptocurrency laptop.
It’s unclear from the complaint whether EZ returned the laptop, but he was allegedly “subject to other instances of harassment by Izza and his associates.” At one point, he received text messages with photos of his family members and the words, “You know everyone.”
When the FBI investigated the case, the complaint says, authorities began interviewing people in Izza’s circle. That included a private investigator listed in the complaint as “KC,” but The Times was able to identify him in related civil records as Kenneth Childs.
According to the criminal complaint, Iza hired Childs in November 2021 to find and monitor EZ. EZ reportedly had a laptop that Izza claimed he stole.
While Childs was working the case, Iza allegedly texted him photographs of sensitive law enforcement information, including images of a computer screen displaying DMV license information and photos of search warrants from EZ’s phone. . At times, according to the criminal complaint, Iza bragged about having paid law enforcement to give him information.
“How did they find it? Is this location in the database?” The boys wrote in the text, according to the complaint.
“We called his phone,” Iza said.
A few text messages later, he added: “The ping was done by law enforcement themselves… A court order was needed… And it had to be signed by a judge.”
In January 2022, federal prosecutors said a current Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, identified in the complaint as Deputy 1, used GPS location information on several phones, including one of EZ’s phones.
The affidavit used to support the warrant described a weapons case that did not include or mention EZ.
“It appears that LASD Officer 1 added Victim EZ’s phone number to a list of phone numbers associated with the firearms investigation and falsely stated that Victim EZ’s phone number was used by the suspect. firearms,” FBI Special Agent Barbara Johnson said in the complaint. “This affidavit resulted in a GPS tracking warrant identifying the victim’s EZ residence.”
After the order was passed, prosecutors allege that Deputy 1 sent screenshots to Iza to prove it.
“Damn, my boy actually gave a warrant,” Iza wrote in a text message. “It’s a serious thing for someone… to put a 24-year career at risk.”
Back in 2022, prosecutors allege that Iza called a meeting to plan the theft of EZ’s laptop. The children attended, as did Iza, another Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy identified in court documents as Deputy 2, and the deputy’s brother.
The children told federal investigators he left his car behind during the robbery. He claimed that the deputy’s brother had arrested EZ’s accomplice
The complaint alleges that Iza paid Childs for the work, then fired him and recovered the money. That same year, in 2022, Childs filed a complaint against the Iza company, which he sued for non-payment. That case is still ongoing.
“I have been defending this narrative for two years,” said James Whitemeyer, an attorney representing Childs and his company. “I was hoping the case would be resolved.”
party planning
Even before the relationship between Iza and EZ deteriorated, prosecutors say the crypto tycoon spent months pursuing another target, planning an event called RC.
In the summer of 2021, prosecutors say RC received an email from Zort asking for help planning a party for Iza’s 21st birthday.
In exchange for $50,000, RC hosted Izza’s house in Bel Air in August 2021. But during the event, RC was taken to Iza’s office, where Iza told him that he was not happy with the party and wanted half of expenses, according to the complaint.
He reportedly asked for RC’s phone, but RC refused until Iza’s bodyguards got their weapons. After Iza forced RC to reveal the code, Iza allegedly returned the $25,000 to herself.
According to the complaint, before going to the RC, Iza took photographs of his driver’s license, passport and credit cards. In the following days, Iza allegedly transferred some money from RC accounts.
The following month, RC was driving through Lakewood with a woman he was dating when a sheriff’s deputy pulled him over to arrest him on a warrant. The officer searched the vehicle and found drugs that RC said he didn’t know were there. At some point during the arrest, RC saw Iza arrive at the scene in a black van, speak to the officer, look at RC, and walk away.
According to the complaint, RC spent three days in jail and the charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.
RC then allegedly received abusive text messages from a number linked to Izza, who showed him photos of his arrest and told him he was “hanging out with the wrong people.”
A few weeks later, officers raided RK’s home, but found no drugs.
Months later, when the FBI located a copy of the documents used to justify the search, investigators discovered that Officer 1 had relied on information from an anonymous confidential informant.
The complaint accuses Izza of other cryptocurrency extortion schemes, including one in which he allegedly posed as an FBI agent and stole a laptop containing the cryptocurrency. In total, investigators estimate that Izza and her then-boyfriend, identified only as “Co-conspirator 1,” earned more than $30 million between 2020 and 2022.
The FBI said it learned that Izza planned to travel from Los Angeles to Zurich, Switzerland, on September 23. They arrested him the same day.
