RICHMOND, Va. – A string of fictional furniture stores and $1.5 million in fraud has led to a guilty plea for six Virginia men.
According to court documents, six defendants admitted to posing as customers at different furniture stores around Richmond. Over five years, they systematically defrauded stores and financial institutions using stolen and fake identities.
The defendants — Mahmoud Aljibawi, Yanal Khrisat, Mohammad Jibawi, Wael Jibawi, Jamel Iljebawe and Alaelddin Aljibawi — pled guilty to 18 counts of identity theft and computer fraud. They were ordered to pay nearly $1.5 million in restitution.
The guilty party used a lease-to-own financing model, in which an intermediary — usually a finance company — pays for furniture up front, before collecting payments with interest over time.
The men, however, did it using furniture stores that didn’t exist. And they used these fake stores to apply for consumer credit from financing companies, including Virginia-based West Creek, Okinus, Greenwave Finance, Synchrony Bank and Wells Fargo.
They then began to submit credit card and lease…
