A California man was recently sentenced to 63 months in federal prison for debit card fraud and student loan fraud. Mordechay Altit, 34, of Elk Grove, had pleaded guilty in August to two counts of mail fraud and one count of money laundering. Altit’s sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell.
Court documents indicate that Altit had used his own name as well as the names and social security numbers of other individuals to apply for debit cards from various financial institutions. He then used identifying information from several businesses across the U.S. to generate fraudulent refunds as well as to have credits placed on the debit cards he had acquired. By the time the businesses became aware of the fraudulent transactions and could take action, Atlit had already spent and/or transferred the funds in the debit cards.
According to a press release from U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner, Altit was also involved in a student loan fraud scheme whereby he “obtained more than $200,000 in student loans and attempted to receive an additional $250,000 in student loans from banks by means of fraudulent representations. On applications submitted by him, Altit fraudulently represented the names of the students applying for the loans, their social security numbers, their incomes, and that they were attending or planned to attend” various schools around the country. Upon receiving some of the monies from two of the student loans, Altit wrote checks to his brother for more than $19,000 each. His brother, Shay Din Altit, pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was sentenced in September to over one year in federal prison.
