Crypto Godfather Adam Iza Gets 78 Months for Meta Fraud and Deputy Scheme

Adam Iza, the 26-year-old who called himself "The Godfather," was sentenced Monday to 78 months in federal prison for hiring off-duty Los Angeles sheriff's deputies to harass his rivals, stealing more than $37 million from Meta, and hiding the proceeds to avoid tax. U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson also ordered him to pay $23,402,766 in restitution, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California said, as Decrypt reported.

Iza pleaded guilty in January 2025 to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and tax evasion, and has been in custody since September 2024. The new term runs alongside the 15-year sentence he received last month in Connecticut over an attempted Bitcoin robbery and kidnapping, so it adds nothing to the time he will actually serve, according to that account.

From August 2021 through April 2022, Iza hired off-duty deputies as personal security. He admitted conspiring with them to pull confidential law-enforcement records and personal data on people he had financial and other disputes with, and to obtain court-authorized search warrants to track those people down. He also had the deputies intimidate and threaten them, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In one case, at Iza's direction, two deputies unholstered their firearms in August 2021 as Iza demanded that a victim identified only as R.C. transfer $25,000 to a bank account tied to Zort, his crypto trading platform. Iza then arranged for R.C. to be arrested with illegal drugs in his car. The next month, a deputy whose security company Iza paid about $100,000 a month misled a narcotics detective, producing a drug raid on R.C.'s home, according to that coverage.

In October 2021, deputies on Iza's payroll stopped another victim, identified as L.A., from leaving Iza's home while Iza held him at gunpoint and forced him to move $127,000 into one of Iza's bank accounts. A third episode centered on a laptop believed to hold a large amount of cryptocurrency: Iza's people brandished a firearm at a man identified as E.Z., who ran and called 911, and later three armed people forced their way into E.Z.'s home to seize the device, the Times wrote.

Five former deputies have now been convicted over work they did for him. They include Eric Chase Saavedra, 42, a former federal task force officer who set up the security company that supplied them and who received 21 months on Sept. 28. Michael David Coberg, 45, is serving 63 months for helping extort a rival and arranging a sham drug arrest, while Scott Allen Simpkins, 34, drew 18 months for obstructing an inquiry into a $25,000 extortion at Iza's Bel Air mansion, and David Anthony Rodriguez, 45, received a year for filing a false search-warrant application, Decrypt noted.

Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that people with money cannot buy "warrants, arrests, badges, or firearms for use in private disputes." They had asked for a prison term of nearly five years, while the judge weighed Iza's history, including childhood displacement from Iraq, separation from his parents, neglect, poverty and prolonged isolation, as detailed in the sentencing coverage.

"He cultivated relationships with sworn law enforcement officers and used those relationships to further his personal and financial interests," Anderson said at the hearing. Iza told the court he took "full responsibility" for his actions: "I just want to make it very clear that I'm not here to skirt the law or make excuses. I understand what I've done and I apologize for it." His lawyer called the judge "a godsend" after the hearing.

The fraud was separate from the deputy scheme. From December 2020, Iza gained access to Meta business-manager accounts and the lines of credit attached to them, then sold that access to advertising companies. Meta clients were billed for ads they never bought; when the billing surfaced, Meta refunded them and absorbed the loss itself. About $37 million flowed into his companies' accounts between 2020 and 2022, Crypto Briefing reported.

In his plea agreement Iza admitted receiving at least $36,360,844 in gross income and causing the IRS a loss of $13,286,152, filing no corporate returns at all. To hide the money he concealed his ownership of Zort, had a co-schemer buy personal items with the cash, and moved corporate income to cryptocurrency custodians, according to that report.

Iris Rabaya Au, 37, Iza's former girlfriend, was sentenced to 18 months on Sept. 21 for failing to report more than $2.6 million she received through his activities. She was ordered to pay $1,484,343 in restitution and to forfeit luxury cars, designer handbags and three "Godfather" sculptures, among other assets. Iza agreed to give up two Mercedes-Benzes, a Ferrari, dozens of luxury handbags and a black-and-yellow Jacob and Co. "Godfather" watch, the newspaper added.

Anderson ordered Iza to pay more than $23 million to the IRS, plus $127,000 to one victim and $25,000 to another. A hearing set for December will decide what is owed to the remaining victims.