LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Las Vegas business owner has been sentenced to four years in federal prison after prosecutors say he carried out a multimillion-dollar Ponzi-style fraud scheme that targeted a food brokerage company.
According to court documents, Richard Vairo, who owned Richard’s Brazilian Sausage LLC, a Florida-based company, fraudulently obtained nearly $4 million from a Las Vegas food brokerage firm between September 2021 and October 2022.
Prosecutors said Vairo claimed he was selling sausage products to a supermarket chain and solicited money from the brokerage company to help increase sales. He allegedly promised to repay the funds with a percentage of the profits from those sales. However, investigators determined that no sausage sales to the supermarket ever occurred.
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Authorities say Vairo sent false weekly sales statements and repeatedly claimed that a bank hold had been placed on funds in his account to explain delays in repayment. He also used social media messaging apps and emails to falsely represent that the business with the supermarket was ongoing…