U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts

??“Today, the Trinitarios reign of terror in Massachusetts has come to an end.” ? #BREAKING Federal charges were unsealed today against nearly two dozen leaders, members and associates of the Trinitarios gang – a violent transnational criminal organization. Twenty-two individuals have been charged with federal offenses, including racketeering conspiracy in connection with six murders and 11 attempted murders. Two individuals, who were juveniles at the time of the alleged criminal offenses, have been charged by the Essex County District Attorney’s Office with murder. The charges are the result of a multijurisdictional investigation that began in the aftermath of four murders as well as a series of attempted murders and shootings that took place in Lynn, Mass. in 2023, allegedly committed by the Trinitarios criminal enterprise. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e6x4bYAK

#ICYMI Earlier today, U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley announced charges against nearly two dozen leaders, members, and associates of the violent transnational criminal organization, the Trinitarios. It is alleged that the Massachusetts Trinitarios have committed at least 10 homicides in Essex County over the past decade and are believed to be responsible for numerous attempted murders, shootings, kidnappings and robberies. Sixteen members of the Trinitarios criminal enterprise in Massachusetts have been charged with six of these murders – two of which took place in Lawrence in 2017 and two double murders in Lynn in 2023. The remaining four homicides are being prosecuted by the Essex District Attorney’s Office. Read the official press release here: https://lnkd.in/ecrYf4YG

Former Massachusetts State Senator Dean A. Tran has been sentenced to a year-and-a-half in federal prison for COVID and tax fraud schemes that raked in tens of thousands of dollars. Tran, 48, of Fitchburg, was sentenced today in federal court in Boston to 18 months in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release for scheming to defraud the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance and collecting income that he failed to report to the IRS. Tran was also ordered to pay $25,100 in restitution to the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance and $23,327 to the Internal Revenue Service, as well as a $7,500 fine and a mandatory assessment of $2,300. In September 2024, Tran was convicted of 20 counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing false tax returns. The defendant was indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2023 Tran served as an elected member of the Massachusetts State Senate, representing Worcester and Middlesex Counties from 2017 to January 2021. After Tran’s State Senate term ended in 2021, Tran fraudulently received pandemic unemployment benefits while simultaneously employed as a paid consultant for a New Hampshire-based retailer of automotive parts (the Automotive Parts Company). While working as a paid consultant for the Automotive Parts Company, Tran fraudulently collected $30,120 in pandemic unemployment benefits.?? In addition, Tran concealed $54,700 in consulting income that he received from the Automotive Parts Company from his 2021 federal income tax return. This was in addition to thousands of dollars in income that Tran concealed from the IRS while collecting rent from tenants who rented his Fitchburg property from 2020 to 2022. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eTch9AiW

“Our priorities are to go after the most dangerous criminals on the streets. We will work to protect every person in the Commonwealth and ensure they feel safe.” ?? Earlier today, U.S. Attorney Foley sat down with reporters at her first media roundtable where she outlined her vision, priorities, and ongoing efforts to keep our communities safe.?

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley has announced that Katherine Ferguson has been appointed to serve as First Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Ms. Ferguson, a career prosecutor, has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for more than a decade. Read the official announcement here: https://lnkd.in/euCRpasg

A Stoughton man who was previously convicted of multiple counts of sex trafficking, was sentenced to 13 years in prison today for sex trafficking multiple adult women. Marvin Pompilus, 39, previously pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion and one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and cocaine. In February 2018, Pompilus was convicted in Suffolk Superior Court of multiple counts of trafficking a person for sexual servitude and deriving support for prostitution. He was sentenced to six years in state prison and was released in October 2021. Following his release from state custody in October 2021, Pompilus conspired to exploit and recruit multiple women into the commercial sex trade, using a combination of physical and sexual violence, threats and verbal abuse and withholding of controlled substances from drug dependent victims to coerce and/or force them to engage in commercial sex acts. He then collected all of the proceeds. Pompilus required his victims to check in with him, forbade them from interacting with other men, and precluded them from obtaining drugs from anyone other than him. If one of the victims attempted to keep any of the proceeds from commercial sex or attempted to refuse to see a sex buyer, Pompilus would become physically violent, at times striking the victim in the face and kicking them. Pompilus would also engage in other forms of abuse such as using degrading names toward his victims, spitting on them, and throwing drinks on them, as well as isolating them from others. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e8HRuZa9

Kemal Mrndzic, 52, of Swampscott, Mass., has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for a 25-year scheme to conceal his persecution of ethnic Serbs during the Bosnian War as well as making false claims to become a refugee to the United States and ultimately a United States citizen. In October 2024, Mrndzic was convicted by a federal jury of engaging in a scheme to conceal his involvement in the persecution of Serb prisoners at the notorious Celebici prison camp in Bosnia in 1992; making a false statement to federal agents about his role at the camp; possessing a fraudulently obtained naturalization certificate and Social Security card; and using a fraudulently obtained passport and certificate of naturalization. Mrndzic served as a supervisor of the guards at the notorious Celebici prison camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the sectarian war which fractured the country in the 1990s. Twenty-one former detainees described Mrndzic as one of the most notable guards at the camp, who was widely known for his particularly vicious treatment of prisoners and his close association with the camp deputy commander. Mrndzic participated in the systematic and pervasive brutal torture and deprivation of basic human needs of hundreds of captive victims – some of whom were elderly – at the Celebici prison camp. For seven months, victims were forcibly detained with starvation rations, at times forced into lightless, airless manholes that were sealed for hours at a time. Victims also endured daily and nightly beatings that were administered by the guards at the camp — with baseball bats, wooden poles and rifle buts. ? A United Nations tribunal investigated the crimes committed at Celebici in the 1990s and convicted the two top commanders of the camp and one particularly sadistic guard on numerous crimes including murder and torture. While Mrndzic was interviewed by investigators in connection with that case in 1996, he was not charged by international authorities. Mrndzic subsequently concocted a scheme to leave Bosnia by crossing the border into Croatia and applying as a refugee to the United States using a fabricated story. In his refugee application and interview, he falsely claimed that he fled his home after he was captured, interrogated and abused by Serb forces, and could not return home for fear of future persecution. As the government argued at trial, Mrndzic used his own experience as a persecutor to press a false narrative that he had been persecuted. He was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee in 1999, and ultimately became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eG_e9VhR

CLS Global FZC LLC, a financial services firm known in the cryptocurrency industry as a “market maker,” has agreed to resolve criminal charges relating to its fraudulent manipulation of cryptocurrency trading volume. As part of the criminal resolution, CLS Global will plead guilty to the charges in a September 2024 indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Boston, including one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud and one count of wire fraud. If its plea is approved by the court, CLS Global will also pay a total of $428,059 to the government, representing both seized cryptocurrency and a fine and will be prohibited from participating in U.S. cryptocurrency markets. The charges against CLS Global followed an?undercover law enforcement operation?targeting cryptocurrency “wash trading,” sham trading activity intended to attract investors. The investigation included the creation of NexFundAI, a purported cryptocurrency company that had a website (https://nexfundai.com) and an Ethereum-based token that traded on the Uniswap cryptocurrency exchange before being disabled by law enforcement. CLS Global has admitted that it agreed to provide market making services for the NexFundAI token that included “wash trading” to fraudulently attract investors to purchase the token. During several videoconferences between July and August 2024, a CLS Global employee explained that the company could “help with volume generation” so that NexFundAI could meet cryptocurrency exchange listing requirements and attract purchasers of the NexFundAI token. The employee explained that CLS Global used an algorithm that “basically does self-trades, buying and selling . . . from multiple wallets so it’s not visible” and so “it looks like organic buying and selling that is happening.” The employee further explained, “It’s very hard to track. . . . We’ve been doing that for many clients.” The employee also acknowledged, “I know that it’s wash trading and I know people might not be happy about it.” CLS Global’s employee provided a “Market Making proposal” which, in a section titled “Volume Support,” contained an illustration of the CLS Global “dashboard” that reflected “total volume,” “CLS volume,” and “external volume.” Traders employed by CLS Global subsequently bought and sold the NexFundAI token on the Uniswap cryptocurrency exchange using CLS Global’s trading wallets and provided reports on the trading activity created by the “volume generation algorithm.” Read more here: https://lnkd.in/d2fryviE

Assistant U.S. Attorney Leah Belaire Foley has been appointed as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts by Acting Attorney General James McHenry. With more than two decades of experience as a federal prosecutor within the Department of Justice, Ms. Foley brings extensive experience in prosecuting complex federal crimes and leading significant Department operations. Ms. Foley was sworn in this afternoon by the U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton. Ms. Foley has been a federal prosecutor for 23 years, first serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and, most recently, the District of Massachusetts after joining the office in 2006 as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division. Prior to being appointed as U.S. Attorney, Ms. Foley served as Deputy Chief of the Narcotics & Money Laundering Unit where she supervised international and domestic narcotics investigations and international money laundering, immigration, human trafficking and firearms cases. She also served as the Lead Attorney for Boston’s Organized Crime & Drug Enforcement Task Force since 2013. Read official announcement here: https://lnkd.in/dcg3DuYE

“The privilege of serving in this position has been the highlight of my career.” ?? U.S. Attorney Levy spoke candidly with members of the media at a pen & pad session today, discussing accomplishments and key takeaways from his tenure – from giving a voice to the voiceless and keeping communities safe, to fighting human trafficking, fraud, and public corruption.