The FBI has taken down a sprawling international identity theft ring connected to an international organized crime syndicate that allegedly used identities stolen from monied elderly homeowners to defraud lenders.
Ten defendants were indicted this week after a series of dramatic law enforcement raids across the Los Angeles area. The suspects and are now charged with “defrauding lenders by stealing the identities of elderly victims, then using the stolen information to access title reports and solicit loans backed by the properties,” the Los Angeles Field Office said in a social media post.
Following a four-year investigation, the FBI’s Eureasian Organized Crime Task Force arrested ten people today in a tittle fraud case called “Operation Hard Money.” The defendants were indicted for allegedly defrauding lenders by stealing the identities of elderly victims, then… pic.twitter.com/BNPbeBePSk
— FBI Los Angeles (@FBILosAngeles) March 19, 2026
The case is the culmination of a four-year investigation involving local police, FBI, and IRS agents. One of the scam’s reputed ringleaders, Armen Vardevaryan, 38, whose street name is Chef Avo, was pulled out of his Hollywood mansion in the pre-dawn hours Thursday morning…