Roseville man gets nearly four years in federal prison for $4 million email scam
A Roseville man was sentenced this week to nearly four years in federal prison for laundering money from an e-mail scam through banks in the Sacramento area, authorities said.
Alex Altoh, 64, was sentenced Tuesday to three years and ten months in prison, Acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith said in a news release. Altoh was also ordered to pay about $1.5 million in restitution, Beckwith said.
Altoh pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering last June in federal court in Sacramento, court records show. Prosecutors say Altoh and a co-conspirator tricked two companies into wiring money to accounts that they controlled, then quickly withdrew the cash and laundered it through a series of banks.
In one case, they fooled an employee at a large company into wiring $3.5 million to Altoh’s account at Wells Fargo Bank. Within hours, Altoh had written five checks against the account, depositing them in five banks in the Sacramento area, including Chase Bank, Beckwith said.
The scheme took place between January and November 2021, documents show.
Altoh and his co-conspirator communicated through the messaging application WhatsApp, prosecutors said in their indictment. In one such message intercepted by investigators, the co-conspirator directs Altoh to deposit funds in an account at Chase Bank.
Altogether, Altoh and his accomplice, who has not yet been arrested, laundered $3.9 million in this manner, Beckwith said. Of that, about $1.1 million has not been recovered, she said.
