Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Christie M. Curtis, Acting Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, and Christopher A. Scharf, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, Northeastern Region (DOT-OIG), announced the sentence.
“The defendant enticed victims to use the moving companies he worked for and then held their belongings hostage to substantially higher prices and the threat of auctioning them off unless they agreed to the fraudulent demands,” said Peace. “For his crime of conviction, it is Prince who will be moving — to a federal prison. My Office is committed to protecting consumers from costly and fraudulent schemes in the moving industry.”
FBI Acting Assistant Director in Charge Curtis noted that Prince enticed customers to entrust fraudulent moving companies with their household goods, only to financially extort them with threats of selling their belongings. Prince utilized his skills as a sales representative to prey upon more than 800 victims undergoing a stressful event by boxing them into misleading contracts and false estimates.
“May the defendant’s move to prison reflect the FBI’s dedication to disrupting widespread fraud schemes and deter future unlawful attempts to monopolize an industry,” Curtis said.
According to the release, as proven at trial, between at least January 2017 and August 2020, Prince and co-defendant Kristy Mak worked for a number of moving companies controlled by co-defendant Yakov Moroz, which operated under various names including Great Moving USA, Green Movers, New City Moves, Cross Country Moving and Storage, and Movers Consulting. Mak was a customer service representative for the companies and supervised Prince, who, as a senior sales representative was responsible for convincing individuals to choose one of the fraudulent moving companies. The defendants lured customers to these movers by posting fake reviews online and having sales associates offer low-cost transportation of their household goods.
After a contract was signed and, in some cases, after the customer’s belongings were loaded on the truck, the movers would spring new expenses on them. If the customer tried contacting the sales associate about the surprise fees, that person was unreachable, and the customers were faced with drivers who threatened to hold their goods hostage unless they paid additional fees which were sometimes double or triple the original estimated cost. In one conversation on the Slack messaging app, Prince reacted to two memes sent to him from another salesperson depicting their scheme to cut off contact with the customer on the day of the move, stating: “[rolling on the floor laughing emoji] that is so accurate.” As a result of the fraudulent scheme, the defendants, together with others, wrongfully obtained more than $3 million from over 800 victims.
“Today’s sentence stemming from the criminal investigation conducted with our law enforcement and prosecutorial partners demonstrates our commitment to detecting and prosecuting fraudulent household goods movers who take advantage of unsuspecting customers by holding their personal belongings hostage,” stated DOT-OIG Special Agent in Charge Scharf. “We will continue our vigorous efforts to root out bad actors from the moving industry and reinforce adherence to Federal laws and regulations designed to protect the public.”
Mak, who was convicted at trial of the same wire fraud conspiracy charge as Prince, is awaiting sentencing. Moroz absconded while on pre-trial release and is currently a fugitive.
If you have been the victim of a similar fraud, a complaint can be filed with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration at https://nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov/nccdb/home.aspx
The government’s case was handled by the Office’s General Crimes Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Arun Bodapati and Elias Laris are in charge of the prosecution with the assistance of Special Agent Rebecca Sidhu and Paralegal Specialist Stephanie Heyward.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
