Bad moves firms’ specialty: feds
Victims of Brooklyn scheme allegedly defrauded out of $3M
A shady moving company empire in Brooklyn muscled about $3 million from their customers — and held their victims’ belongings hostage until they paid jacked-up fees, federal prosecutors said.
Kristy Mak and Andre Prince, who worked as a sales manager and sales rep for a string of Brooklyn-based companies, are set to go on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court this week for wire fraud conspiracy, accused of exploiting more than 800 victims. Opening arguments are slated for Wednesday.
Their boss, Yakov Moroz, whom prosecutors call the mastermind of the alleged scheme, jumped bail in January. He’s believed to be hiding out in Israel, law enforcement sources said.
The scam targeted people looking for reliable, low-cost moving companies, with Moroz and his associates even creating a now-defunct website, top5movers.org, and lying about their companies having decades experience, the feds allege.
They operated under names like “Great Movers,” New City Movers” and “American Choice Van Lines,” and offered customers low estimates.
But once the trucks were loaded up, the suspects jacked up the price, telling customers to pay up of else they wouldn’t see their belongings again, the feds said.
They threatened to put those belongings into storage and charge the customers for the storage, and dangled the threat of selling the items off at auction if they weren’t paid, according to the feds.
At times, customers were forced to pay more than double the estimate they were quoted, and even after they paid, many had to wait weeks or even months to get their belongings back, the feds allege.
The suspects violated the federal laws that govern how moving companies give estimates, and how and when they can bill for unexpected costs, according of to prosecutors. And Moroz lied about who owned the companies and misrepresented the companies’ physical locations, prosecutors allege.
Mak and
Prince are accused of offering the initial lowball estimates, and coordinating the scheme through Slack, WhatsApp texts and emails.
In a January status conference, Mak’s lawyer Jeffrey Pittell hinted at a possible defense: “The actual defrauding occurred between the drivers and the victim . ... The salespeople had no contact with the drivers. They had no involvement in requesting or accepting additional fees. Their role in the case is simply to book the jobs, and once the jobs were booked they had no more involvement of it.”
Two other suspects, Paula Jones and Kristen Smith, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy last month.
Smith was accused of contacting the customers and demanding additional money for delivery.
Moroz’s clerical assistant Tal Ohana was also initially indicted alongside him in 2020. She pleaded guilty to obstruction after the government determined that she took no part in defrauding customers, and was only involved with making false statements to cover up the true ownership and locations of the moving companies.
She was sentenced years’ probation. to two