Former Lakewood Gas Station Owner Charged with $190,000 Bank Fraud

March 5, 2010 - teven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced today that a federal grand jury in Cleveland, Ohio, returned an indictment against Ikhlaq Nayyar, age 35. Nayyar was charged with eight counts of bank fraud. Nayyar is the former owner and operator of the Clark Sunoco gas station in Lakewood, Ohio.

The indictment alleges that Clark Sunoco was an approved vendor of money orders issued by MoneyGram International (“MGI”). As the owner and operator of Clark Sunoco, the defendant was authorized to sell money orders through the gas station.

The indictment alleges that from May 2007 through November 2007, Nayyar issued MGI money orders to himself without remitting payment to MGI. The indictment alleges that Nayyar deposited the money orders into various bank accounts he controlled and, shortly after depositing these money orders, Nayyar made numerous withdrawals from those accounts knowing full well that the accounts were not legitimately funded to support the withdrawals. The indictment alleges further that Nayyar sent some of the fraudulent money orders to his credit card company as “payments” and then made additional purchases with the credit card knowing that the purchases exceeded his available line of credit. The indictment alleges that MGI stopped payment on the money orders Nayyar issued to himself.

The indictment also alleges that Nayyar wrote multiple checks on accounts in his name and over which he had control knowing that the checks exceeded the amount of money available in the accounts on which the checks were drawn. The indictment alleges that Nayyar deposited the checks into other accounts in his name and over which he had control and then before the financial institutions learned that there were insufficient funds in the accounts, Nayyar made withdrawals from the accounts.

The indictment alleges that seven financial institutions have sustained losses exceeding $194,000.

If convicted, the defendant’s sentence will be determined by the court after review of factors unique to this case, including the defendant’s prior criminal record, if any, the defendant’s role in the offense and the characteristics of the violations. In all cases the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in most cases it will be less than the maximum.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Bridget M. Brennan after an investigation by the Cleveland Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.