Brandon Becker, the former CEO of CardReady, LLC, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for running a massive credit card laundering scheme that defrauded victims out of more than $19 million. Becker was found guilty of operating a fraudulent telemarketing operation that promised debt reduction services but instead tricked nearly 20,000 victims. This fraudulent activity involved the creation of fake businesses to process payments for services that violated credit card processing guidelines.
The Scheme: Creating Fake Companies to Hide Fraud
Brandon Becker, 53, of Los Angeles, California, was the CEO of CardReady, a company that worked as a sales agent in the credit card processing industry. CardReady’s job was to find merchants who needed credit card processing services and submit merchant applications to a company known as the New York ISO. The New York ISO would evaluate these applications and send the acceptable ones to a bank and payment processor, which would then handle payments for merchants.
In 2012, Becker struck a deal with Steven Short, the head of E.M. Systems & Services, a Florida-based company. The deal allowed E.M. Systems to process credit card payments through CardReady’s network. Short and his telemarketers called thousands of people, offering services like debt consolidation and interest-rate reduction—services that were prohibited by the bank’s processing guidelines. These offers were illegal and resulted in chargebacks (refunds), which occurred when customers were unhappy with the services they received.
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To conceal the true nature of the operation, Becker and his co-conspirators created approximately 26 fake businesses, known as “sham merchants,” to apply for credit card processing services. These sham merchants were typically signed by individuals who had no knowledge of the business they were supposedly running. These signers were paid small fees in exchange for using their names to create fake merchant accounts.
By submitting fraudulent merchant applications and concealing the true identity of E.M. Systems, Becker and his team made it possible for E.M. Systems to continue processing payments despite the chargebacks and complaints. The use of fake merchant accounts allowed E.M. Systems to avoid detection by the bank and payment processors, enabling the operation to run for years.
The Fraudulent Network Expands
Becker’s illegal activities didn’t stop with E.M. Systems. Between 2012 and 2016, Becker and his co-conspirators expanded the operation by recruiting more than 270 individuals to serve as signers for fake businesses. In total, they created over 800 sham merchant accounts, which were used to process payments for more than 30 high-risk companies, aside from E.M. Systems. This network of fake businesses allowed the operation to conceal the true scale of the fraud and evade chargeback monitoring systems put in place by the bank, payment processor, and the New York ISO.
The fraudulent scheme worked by spreading out chargebacks, refunds, and payments across multiple sham merchant accounts, making it harder for the bank and processors to detect unusual activities. Even when the bank or payment processor shut down certain accounts due to excessive chargebacks or reports of prohibited services, Becker ensured the fraudulent activities continued by quickly replacing those accounts with new fake ones. This allowed the fraudulent businesses to maintain access to payment processing for an extended period.
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The Consequences and Sentence
On August 30, 2024, Becker pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. Today, U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska sentenced Becker to seven years in prison for his role in the multi-million-dollar fraud. In addition to his prison sentence, Becker was also ordered to pay $1,910,600.05 in restitution and forfeit $11,405,964.00 in stolen funds.
Steven Short, the co-defendant who worked alongside Becker in the fraudulent scheme, had pled guilty in 2022 and was sentenced in May 2023. Short received a sentence of 78 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay the same amount of restitution as Becker, $1,910,600.05, along with the forfeiture of $8,833,889.69 in stolen money.
Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and thanked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for their role in the investigation. He emphasized that Becker’s sentence sends a clear message: corporate executives who facilitate fraud will face serious consequences.
This case was handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Vladislav Vainberg and Timothy Capozzi leading the prosecution.
