Virginian Sentenced to 90 Months in $16 Million Fraud Scheme

March 8, 2010 - ALEXANDRIA, VA—Hanif Hassan Moledina, 46, formerly of Great Falls, Va., was sentenced today to 90 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for carrying out a fraud scheme that resulted in illegal gross proceeds exceeding $16 million. He was also ordered to pay $6,617,220 in restitution and to forfeit $8,339,428. Since Moledina is not a U.S. citizen, he will be turned over to immigration authorities upon his release from prison for deportation proceedings.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Shawn Henry, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, made the announcement sentencing by United States District Judge T.S. Ellis III.

According to a statement of facts filed with his plea agreement, Moledina was the majority owner and operator of Bean East Corporation, a coffee roasting company located in Luray, Va. Beginning in 2004, Moledina began operating a Ponzi scheme, borrowing large sums of money at exceptionally high rates of interest from friends and associates and telling them that he had contracts to purchase coffee beans from suppliers in Columbia, South America, and a contract to supply beans to The Folgers Coffee Company. Over the next five years, Moledina borrowed more than $8.3 million from approximately 26 persons. In fact, no such contracts existed, and Moledina used the money for personal expenses as well as to make interest payments to some of the borrowers.

In addition, Moledina admitted to conducting several other fraudulent ventures during this period. In 2006, Moledina obtained a $2.3 million mortgage on a building in Luray from BB&T, without disclosing to the bank or the building’s co-owner that he had moved tenants from that building into one that he solely owned. Later, in a successful effort to sell the second building, he presented forged tenant leases to the intended purchaser to create the illusion that the building had a guaranteed income stream. In the meantime, over a period of three years, Moledina withdrew more than $800,000 from a corporate account set up for the first building without his co-owner’s knowledge and for purposes unrelated to the operation or maintenance of the building.

Moledina also admitted that in January 2007, he drafted and forged signatures on fictitious leases to assure a potential purchaser that a building, which Moledina owned, had a guaranteed income stream. The purchaser later bought the building from Moledina for $3.4 million.

Finally, in 2007 and 2008, Moledina admitted that he presented fraudulent Bean East financial statements to Washington First Bank in support of three loans totaling approximately $1.2 million.

This case is being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael E. Rich.