Adam Iza, the 26-year-old who styled himself as “The Godfather,” has been sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for a fraud scheme that extracted more than $37 million from Meta, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson also ordered Iza to pay $23.4 million in restitution. In addition to the Meta fraud, Iza was convicted of tax evasion and using off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to intimidate people he considered adversaries.

Iza pleaded guilty in January 2025 to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and a single tax-evasion charge. His latest prison term will run concurrently with a 15-year sentence imposed in Connecticut last month for his involvement in an attempted bitcoin robbery in August 2024.

Prosecutors said Iza obtained Meta Business Manager accounts and the credit lines connected to them before selling access to advertising companies. Customers were subsequently charged by Meta for advertisements they had not purchased, with the company later issuing refunds.

The proceeds were also tied to cryptocurrency activity. The Justice Department said Iza acknowledged moving corporate income generated through the fraud to crypto custodians while concealing his ownership of a company named Zort.

According to prosecutors, Iza received at least $36.4 million from the operation. The resulting tax losses to the Internal Revenue Service were estimated at $13.3 million.

Deputies Provided Private Investigative Help

The case also involved Iza’s use of law-enforcement resources for personal disputes. Prosecutors said that from 2021 through 2022, he hired off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to obtain confidential law-enforcement information, personal data and search warrants.

Those resources were allegedly used to track and harass individuals involved in disputes with Iza. The five former Los Angeles deputies who participated have since been convicted.

Prosecutors stressed at sentencing that wealthy individuals cannot use money to obtain restricted government resources for private conflicts. The DOJ statement said such individuals cannot purchase access to confidential databases, investigative tools, warrants, arrests, badges or firearms for those purposes.

Iza’s conviction is part of a wider series of cryptocurrency-related fraud cases in the U.S.

Last month, Brooklyn resident Ronald Spektor was sentenced to 12 years behind bars for impersonating Coinbase customer-service agents and tricking around 100 people into believing their accounts had been hacked.

Las Vegas businessman Brent Kovar was also convicted in August of running a crypto Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors said his operation defrauded at least 400 investors of $24 million.