Brandon Becker, 53, the former CEO of CardReady LLC, was sentenced Monday to seven years in federal prison for orchestrating a $19 million laundering scheme that defrauded a credit card processor and a federally insured bank, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Becker created hundreds of sham merchant accounts to disguise prohibited transactions. He and his co-conspirators submitted false merchant applications for E.M. Systems & Services, a Florida-based company, to facilitate payments for services such as debt consolidation sold by telemarketers in violation of bank guidelines.
In 2012, Becker negotiated a deal with E.M. Systems’ founder, Steven Short, 48, of Tampa, Florida, to receive a share of the transaction revenue in exchange for granting network access. Becker subsequently created about 26 sham merchant companies, each headed by a paid “signer” who had no involvement in the actual business operations.
When merchant accounts were shut down due to excessive chargebacks, Becker arranged for these accounts to be swiftly replaced with new ones. Between 2012 and 2016, Becker and his co-conspirators recruited over 270 signers to create more than 800 fake merchant accounts for at least 30 high-risk clients.
In 2022, Steven Short pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and was sentenced to six and a half years in prison the following year. Short was also ordered to pay $1.9 million in restitution and forfeit nearly $8.8 million.
