)
or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Date: July 22, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
California man gets maximum sentence for laundering proceeds from email fraud scheme
HOUSTON — A San Fernando, California, man has been ordered to federal prison for operating an illegal money transmitting business, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Victor Rubio Jr. pleaded guilty Feb. 6.
U.S. District Judge George Hanks has now ordered Rubio to serve the maximum 60 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by three years of supervised release. At the hearing, the court considered additional evidence about other frauds Rubio committed while on bond in imposing the sentencing, assessing extra points for obstruction of justice. In handing down the sentence, Judge Hanks noted Rubio had committed obstruction after writing his letter to the judge asking for leniency and apologizing for his first crime.
Rubio admitted that from 2021 to 2022, he operated an unlicensed money transmitting business that received and transmitted funds from a business email compromise (BEC) scheme. Rubio ran the unlicensed money transmitting business by using shell companies that existed only on paper.
As part of the plea, Rubio acknowledged opening and maintaining bank accounts to collect money from at least two victims in a BEC scheme, including a healthcare liability insurance company headquartered in Georgia and a township in New Jersey. Then, for a fee, he transmitted the fraud proceeds to co-conspirators.
In response to fraudulent wire instructions from spoofed email accounts, victims sent interstate wire transfers for payment to Rubio instead of to the true creditors to whom the victims owed money.
More than 45 people in multiple states, including Rubio and seven others in the Southern District of Texas, have been charged in separate business email compromise schemes that affected numerous victims.
“As experts in forensic accounting and financial crimes, our special agents were brought into the investigation to trace the laundered money from the scheme, through the bank accounts and financial transactions. There were victims from around the country and their money routed through Rubio,” said acting Special Agent in Charge Lucy Tan, of IRS Criminal Investigation’s Houston Field Office. “There are victims in financial crimes and, when you break it down, much of our crime centers around greed. Greed always leaves a trail for us to follow.”
Previously released on bond, Rubio was taken into custody where he will remain pending transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
IRS Criminal Investigation and the FBI - Bryan Resident Agency conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Belinda Beek is prosecuting the case.
IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.