"Crypto Godfather" gets 78 months, closing case on off-duty deputies, warrants, kidnapping ring

Adam Iza, the 26-year-old self-styled “Godfather” at the head of a crypto crime ring that employed off-duty Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies as muscle, received a 78-month federal sentence on Monday, October 5.

Iza became the sixth person to be hit with jail time in an organization that ran multiple schemes, including stealing over $37 million from Meta, tax evasion, and conspiring to violate his victims’ civil rights.

How long will Adam Iza spend in prison?

The six and a half year sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson in the Central District of California will run concurrently with the 15-year sentence Iza is already serving after a September ruling over his role in financing and organizing an attempted Bitcoin robbery in Connecticut.

Hence, Iza, who sat in federal custody since September 2024, does not face any additional prison time on top of his previous 15-year sentence. However, the court ordered him to repay $23,402,766 in restitution.

Iza pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and tax evasion in January 2025.

Courts take down crypto godfather’s empire

The Monday ruling is the final chapter of a sentencing spree that has already led to prison spells for five former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies that Iza admitted to hiring as personal security between August 2021 and April 2022.

Iza admitted in his guilty plea that the sheriff’s deputies helped him gain access to confidential law enforcement records and personal data of his business rivals. The deputies also helped him secure court-authorized search warrants to locate those targets. The same off-duty cops would also intimidate and threaten people Iza was feuding with.

Prosecutors warned people with deep pockets that they “cannot purchase access to confidential databases, investigative tools, warrants, arrests, badges, or firearms for use in private disputes.”

How Iza made money from Meta ad-account

From late 2020, Iza fraudulently broke into business manager accounts at Meta Platforms and tapped the lines of credit attached to them, then resold that access to advertising companies at a profit.

Meta clients ended up billed for ad spending they never ordered. The company had to refund clients and absorb the loss after the fraudulent scheme was exposed.

Iza never filed corporate tax returns on at least $36,360,844 he grossed from the Meta scheme between 2020 and 2023. He also hid his ownership in the trading company, Zort. Iza owed the IRS at least $13,286,152 after using crypto to hide his ill-gained wealth.

How the crypto godfather’s empire unraveled

The thread that ties the California fraud to the Connecticut prison term runs through a botched abduction. Fortune reported that in August 2024, would-be kidnappers dragged Sushil and Radhika Chetal from their Lamborghini on a Danbury road, beat Sushil with a bat and bound the couple with duct tape before a police chase ended in arrests.

The target was their son, Veer Chetal, tied to a theft of roughly 4,100 Bitcoin worth about $245 million at the time.

Iza, who Rolling Stone reported once claimed a $700 million net worth and lived in a Bel Air mansion where Prince had stayed, admitted helping organize the attempt to seize a share of that stolen crypto. That case, not the LA fraud, is what put him behind bars first.

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