Jon Briceno, 42, of Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty July 19 to conspiracy to commit money laundering, relating to his laundering of more than $8,751,523.07 in proceeds of various frauds, such as romance schemes and business email compromise schemes.
The guilty plea was announced by Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland; Special Agent in Charge Christina Bentham of the United States Secret Service (USSS), Baltimore Field Office; and Sheriff Matt Crisafulli of the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the plea agreement, beginning around June 2020, at the latest, and continuing through the date of his arrest by federal law enforcement on February 20, 2024, Briceno entered into an illegal agreement with the individuals referred to as Person A and Person B in the Indictment and numerous other co-conspirators to conduct and attempt to conduct financial transactions affecting interstate and foreign commerce that constituted the fraud schemes.
The conspiracy involved using numerous shell companies formed by Briceno and his co-conspirators and the opening of multiple bank accounts in the name of the shell companies that concealed his receipt and transfer of fraud proceeds. These shell companies assisted the conspiracy by allowing Briceno to receive and transfer fraud proceeds while concealing Briceno’s identity and that of his co-conspirators.
In connection with the scheme, Briceno and his co-conspirators each took a percentage of the proceeds from schemes, with Briceno often taking 10-25% of the fraud proceeds.
Briceno was an organizer or leader of the money laundering conspiracy, which involved multiple participants around the nation. Indeed, the Briceno routinely directed co-conspirators across the county in connection with the scheme, including by recruiting them to open bank accounts in their names or in the names of various purported businesses (shell companies) to launder the fraud proceeds, informing them when proceeds of schemes of defraud were deposited into bank accounts they controlled, directing the co-conspirators regarding the intermediate accounts to which the proceeds were to be transferred; and directing the co-conspirators to confirm to him that the co-conspirators had received and then transferred the proceeds as requested, including photographs of online bank statements and online wire transfer confirmations, mobile device screenshots of confirmations of transfers of funds via Zelle and mobile device screenshots of online bank statements.
Among the financial transactions Briceno directed with his co-conspirators was their receipt of funds from a victim, the Worcester County Treasurer’s Office in Worcester County, Maryland—referred to as Victim 1 in the Indictment—on 12 separate instances beginning on November 20, 2020, and ending on January 21, 2021, in amounts ranging in size from $16.60 to $41,471.94.
In total, Worcester County was fraudulently convinced to provide $167,745.18 in funds to a bank account controlled by Briceno as a result of a business email compromise scheme in which an accounting manager employed by Worcester County received fraudulent emails directing that payments be made in response to a bill be made to the account controlled by Briceno.
Moreover, during the broader timeframe of June 2020 to February 20, 2024, Briceno and his co-conspirators used numerous accounts opened by Briceno and co-conspirators throughout the United States) to launder fraud proceeds obtained by numerous victims across the United States (including victims from California, Illinois, Virginia, Iowa, North Carolina, Texas, Missouri, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Indiana, South Carolina, Ohio, Alabama), as well as international victims Australia, Singapore, Luxembourg, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Thailand.
In total, Briceno laundered at least $8,751,523.07 in funds that were proceeds of wire fraud, and he personally received in excess of $1,250,000 as his share of the fraudulently obtained funds.
Briceno used the fraudulently obtained funds he received to purchase, among other things, numerous pieces of jewellery from Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and others, numerous luxury items from designers such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior, and Christian Louboutin, and at least nine Rolex watches (valued at more than $10,000 each).
He invested in crypto-currency using the funds and likewise frequently gambled with large amounts of it. Moreover, Briceno used the funds to lease office space, which he used as a space for running a poker room in Texas.
On June 15, 2022, Briceno’s residence, at the time located in Katy, Texas, was searched pursuant to a federal search warrant. During the search, law enforcement identified and seized numerous bank records, money order receipts, pawn shop receipts, several bankcards and articles of incorporation documents for various shell businesses used in connection with money laundering conspiracy, along with various electronic devices.
One of these devices contained numerous WhatsApp messages and audio recordings of evidentiary value, including messages with co-conspirators concerning the money laundering conspiracy and numerous bank accounts used by Briceno, Person A, Person B, and others to launder fraud scheme funds, and numerous shell entities that were founded and used in connection with the conspiracy.
On February 20, 2024, law enforcement executed another search warrant at Briceno’s new home, also located in Katy, Texas, and Briceno was arrested. Numerous items of evidentiary value were seized during the search, including electronic devices with content reflecting the money laundering conspiracy with Person A, Person B, and others.
Briceno faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison followed by up to three years of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Maddox has scheduled sentencing for October 24, 2024, at 10:00 a.m.
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