Virginian Pleads Guilty to $16 Million Fraud Scheme

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Hanif Hassan Moledina, 46, formerly of Great Falls, Va., pleaded guilty today to a fraud scheme that resulted in illegal gross proceeds exceeding $16 million.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, made the announcement after the plea was accepted by United States District Judge T.S. Ellis III.

Moledina pled guilty today to four counts of wire fraud, which each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. He will be sentenced on Jan. 29, 2010.

According to a statement of facts filed with his plea agreement, Moledina was the majority owner and operator of Bean East Corporation, a coffee roasting company located in Luray, Va. Beginning in 2004, Moledina began operating a Ponzi scheme, borrowing large sums of money at exceptionally high rates of interest from friends and associates and telling them that he had contracts to purchase coffee beans from suppliers in Columbia, South America, and a contract to supply beans to The Folgers Coffee Company. Over the next five years, Moledina borrowed more than $8.3 million from approximately 26 persons. In fact, no such contracts existed, and Moledina used the money for personal expenses as well as to make interest payments to some of the borrowers.

In addition, Moledina admitted to conducting several other fraudulent ventures during this period. In 2006, Moledina obtained a $2.3 million mortgage on a building in Luray from BB&T, without disclosing to the bank or the building’s co-owner that he had moved tenants from that building into one that he solely owned. Later, in a successful effort to sell the second building, he presented forged tenant leases to the intended purchaser to create the illusion that the building had a guaranteed income stream. In the meantime, over a period of three years, Moledina withdrew more than $800,000 from a corporate account set up for the first building without his co-owner’s knowledge and for purposes unrelated to the operation or maintenance of the building.

Moledina also admitted that in January 2007, he drafted and forged signatures on fictitious leases to assure a potential purchaser that a building, which Moledina owned, had a guaranteed income stream. The purchaser later bought the building from Moledina for $3.4 million.

Finally, in 2007 and 2008, Moledina admitted that he presented fraudulent Bean East financial statements to Washington First Bank in support of three loans totaling approximately $1.2 million.

This case is being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael E. Rich.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.uspci.uscourts.gov.

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