Kam Seto, 46, was ordered to serve 45 months in prison for participating in a scheme that involved depositing fraudulent checks from a credit line into bank accounts and then rapidly withdrawing the money from ATMs, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said in a statement.
Seto and the other three defendants made plea agreements admitting to depositing the phony checks, making withdrawals, and then making purchases before the checks were returned unpaid.
The statement said bank accounts became overdrawn by thousands of dollars, and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars.
Seto was ordered to serve a 21-month sentence for bank fraud conspiracy followed by a 24-month sentence for aggravated identity theft conviction, Haag said.
Zhijian Wu, 38, was sentenced to 33 months in prison on Sept. 8 for participating in the scheme. He was ordered to pay more than $719,000 to banks that were scammed, the statement said.
Peter Chan, 45, was sentenced to 31 months in prison on Sept. 1 and ordered to pay more than $589,000 to victimized banks.
Kent Wu, 38, was sentenced to 33 months in prison and ordered to pay $695,000 to scammed banks.
More than $750,000 has been paid in restitution to the victim banks since the four were sentenced, the statement said, with about $200,000 already paid from Wu and $550,00 from Chan.
