Ex-girlfriend of crypto ‘Godfather’ pleads guilty to $2.6M tax charge

Iris Ramaya Au, the former girlfriend of admitted crypto fraudster Adam Iza, dubbed “The Godfather,” has agreed to plead guilty to a federal criminal tax charge.

Au pled guilty to a single count of giving a false tax return “for failing to report more than $2.6 million in ill-gotten gains she obtained via her then-boyfriend’s criminal activities,” the US Justice Department said in a March 5 statement.

Her ex-boyfriend, Iza, pled guilty in January to his involvement in multiple illicit schemes from 2020 to 2024, including fraudulently obtaining Facebook and Meta advertising accounts and credit and selling access to these accounts. 

“Iza obtained millions of dollars of unreported income as a result of these schemes,” the Justice Department said.

At Iza’s direction, Au created shell corporations and opened bank accounts in the names of those entities, it added.

She then used the illicit funds to pay approximately $1 million to bribe Los Angeles deputies and to purchase or lease luxury real estate, cars, jewelry and clothing.

Au and Iza also used the ill-gotten gains to pay for “recreational activity,” which was valued at nearly $10 million, and to acquire around $16 million in cryptocurrency.

Iza, who also founded the Zort crypto trading platform, copped to charges of conspiracy against rights, wire fraud, and tax evasion. 

Related: Early Bitcoin investor jailed for unreported crypto gains in $4M BTC sale

He also admitted to paying off deputies at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to provide private security for him and asked them to get “search warrants and confidential law enforcement information targeting people with whom Iza had financial and personal disputes,” the Justice Department said.

In her plea, Au admitted that she transferred more than $2.6 million from these various accounts to her personal bank accounts between 2020 and 2023.

She faces up to three years in federal prison, while Iza faces up to 35 years and will be sentenced on June 16.

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