A California man accused of failing to pay taxes on tens of millions of dollars allegedly earned from cybercrime also paid local police officers hundreds of thousands of dollars to help him extort, intimidate and silence rivals and former business partners, the government alleges. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that many of the man’s alleged targets were members of UGNazi, a hacker group behind multiple high-profile breaches and cyberattacks back in 2012.
A photo released by the government allegedly showing Iza posing with several LASD officers on his payroll.
A federal complaint (PDF) filed last week said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been investigating Los Angeles resident Adam Iza. Also known as “Assad Faiq” and “The Godfather,” Iza is the founder of a cryptocurrency investment platform called Zort that advertised the ability to make smart trades based on artificial intelligence technology.
But the feds say investors in Zort soon lost their shorts, after Iza and his girlfriend began spending those investments on Lamborghinis, expensive jewelry, vacations, a $28 million home in Bel Air, even cosmetic surgery to extend the length of his legs.
The complaint states the FBI started looking at Iza after receiving multiple reports that he had on his payroll several active deputies with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD). Iza’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The complaint cites a letter from an attorney for a victim referenced only as “E.Z.,” who was seeking help related to an extortion and robbery allegedly committed by Iza. The government says that in March 2022, three men showed up at E.Z.’s home, and tried to steal his laptop in an effort to gain access to E.Z. cryptocurrency holdings online. A police report referenced in the complaint says three intruders were scared off when E.Z. fired several handgun rounds in the direction of his assailants.
The FBI later obtained a copy of a search warrant executed by LASD deputies in January 2022 for GPS location information on a phone belonging to E.Z., which shows an LASD deputy unlawfully added E.Z.’s mobile number to a list of those associated with an unrelated firearms investigation.
“Damn my guy actually filed the warrant,” Iza allegedly texted someone after the location warrant was entered. “That’s some serious shit to do for someone….risking a 24 years career. I pay him 280k a month for complete resources. They’re active-duty.”
The FBI alleges LASD officers had on several previous occasions tried to kidnap and extort E.Z. at Iza’s behest. The complaint references a November 2021 incident wherein Iza and E.Z. were in a car together when Iza asked to stop and get snacks at a convenience store. While they were still standing next to the car, a van with several armed LASD deputies showed up and tried to force E.Z. to hand over his phone. E.Z. escaped unharmed, and alerted 911.
E.Z. appears to be short for Enzo Zelocchi, a self-described “actor” who was featured in an ABC News story about a home invasion in Los Angeles around that same time as the March 2022 home invasion, in which Zelocchi is quoted as saying at least two men tried to rob him at gunpoint (we’ll revisit Zelocchi’s acting credits in a moment).
One of many self portraits published on the Instagram account of Enzo Zelocchi.
The criminal complaint makes frequent references to a co-conspirator of Iza (“CC-1”) — his girlfriend at the time — who allegedly helped Iza run his businesses and spend the millions plunked down by Zort investors. We know what E.Z. stands for because Iza’s girlfriend then was a woman named Iris Au, and in November 2022 she sued Zelocchi for allegedly stealing Iza’s laptop.
The complaint says Iza also harassed a man identified only as T.W., and refers to T.W. as one of two Americans currently incarcerated in the Philippines for murder. In December 2018, a then 21-year-old Troy Woody Jr. was arrested in Manila after he was spotted dumping the body of his dead girlfriend Tomi Masters into a local river.
Woody is accused of murdering Masters with the help of his best friend and roommate at the time: Mir Islam, a.k.a. “JoshTheGod,” referred to in the Iza complaint as “M.I.” Islam and Woody were both core members of UGNazi, a hacker collective that sprang up in 2012 and claimed credit for hacking and attacking a number of high-profile websites.
In June 2016, Islam was sentenced to a year in prison for an impressive array of crimes, including stalking people online and posting their personal data on the Internet. Islam also pleaded guilty to reporting dozens of phony bomb threats and fake hostage situations at the homes of celebrities and public officials (Islam participated in a swatting attack against this author in 2013).
Troy Woody Jr. (left) and Mir Islam, are currently in prison in the Philippines for murder.
In December 2022, Troy Woody Jr. sued Iza, Zelocchi and Zort, alleging (PDF) Iza and Zelocchi were involved in a 2018 home invasion at his residence, wherein Woody claimed his assailants stole laptops and phones containing more than $200 million in cryptocurrencies.
Woody’s complaint states that Masters also was present during his 2018 home invasion, as was another core UGNazi member: Eric “CosmoTheGod” Taylor. CosmoTheGod rocketed to Internet infamy in 2013 when he and a number of other hackers set up the Web site exposed[dot]su, which published the address, Social Security numbers and other personal information of public figures, including the former First Lady Michelle Obama, the then-director of the FBI and the U.S. attorney general. The group also swatted many of the people they doxed.
Exposed was built with the help of identity information obtained and/or stolen from ssndob dot ru.
In 2017, Taylor was sentenced to three years probation for participating in multiple swatting attacks, including the one against my home in 2013.
The complaint against Iza says the FBI interviewed Woody in Manila where he is currently incarcerated, and learned that Iza has been harassing him about passwords that would unlock access to cryptocurrencies. The FBI’s complaint leaves open the question of how Woody and Islam got the phones in the first place, but the implication is that Iza may have instigated the harassment by having mobile phones smuggled to the prisoners.
The government suggests its case against Iza was made possible in part thanks to Iza’s propensity for ripping off people who worked for him. The complaint cites information provided by a private investigator identified only as “K.C.,” who said Iza hired him to surveil Zelocchi but ultimately refused to pay him for much of the work.
K.C. stands for Kenneth Childs, who in 2022 sued Iris Au and Zort (PDF) for theft by deception and commercial disparagement, after it became clear his private eye services were being used as part of a scheme by the Zort founders to intimidate and extort others. Childs’ complaint says Iza clawed back tens of thousands of dollars in payments he’d previously made as part of their contract.
The government also included evidence provided by an associate of Iza’s — named only as “R.C.” — who was hired to throw a party at Iza’s home. According to the feds, Iza paid the associate $50,000 to craft the event to his liking, but on the day of the party Iza allegedly told R.C. he was unhappy with the event and demanded half of his money back.
When R.C. balked, Iza allegedly surrounded the man with armed LASD officers, who then extracted the payment by seizing his phone. The government says Iza kept R.C.’s phone and spent the remainder of his bank balance.
A photo Iza allegedly sent to Tassilo Heinrich immediately after Heinrich’s arrest on unsubstantiated drug charges.
The FBI said that after the incident at the party, Iza had his bribed sheriff deputies pull R.C. over and arrest him on phony drug charges. The complaint includes a photo of R.C. being handcuffed by the police, which the feds say Iza sent to R.C. in order to intimidate him even further. The drug charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence.
The government alleges Iza and Au paid the LASD officers using Zelle transfers from accounts tied to two different entities incorporated by one or both of them: Dream Agency and Rise Agency. The complaint further alleges that these two entities were the beneficiaries of a business that sold hacked and phished Facebook advertising accounts, and bribed Facebook employees to unblock ads that violated its terms of service.
The complaint says Iza ran this business with another individual identified only as “T.H.,” and that at some point T.H. had personal problems and checked himself into rehab. T.H. told the FBI that Iza responded by stealing his laptop and turning him in to the government.
KrebsOnSecurity has learned that T.H. in this case is Tassilo Heinrich, a man indicted in 2022 for hacking into the e-commerce platform Shopify, and leaking the user database for Ledger, a company that makes hardware wallets for storing cryptocurrencies.
Heinrich pleaded guilty and was sentenced to time served, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to Shopify. Upon his release from custody, Heinrich told the FBI that Iza was still using his account at the public screenshot service Gyazo to document communications regarding his alleged bribing of LASD officers.
Prosecutors say Iza and Au portrayed themselves as glamorous and wealthy individuals who were successful social media influencers, but that most of that was a carefully crafted facade designed to attract investment from cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Meanwhile, the U.K. tabloids reported this summer that Au was dating Davide Sanclimenti, the 2022 co-winner on the dating reality show Love Island.
Au was featured on the July 2024 cover of “Womenpreneur Middle East.”
Recall that we promised to revisit Mr. Zelocchi’s claimed acting credits. Despite being briefly listed on the Internet Movie Data Base (imdb.com) as the most awarded science fiction actor of all time, it’s not clear whether Mr. Zelocchi has starred in any real movies.
Earlier this year, an Internet sleuth on Youtube showed that even though Zelocchi’s IMDB profile has him earning more awards than most other actors on the platform (here he is holding a Youtube top viewership award), Zelocchi is probably better known as the director of the movie once rated the absolute worst sci-fi flick on IMDB: A 2015 work called “Angel’s Apocalypse.” Most of the videos on Zelocchi’s Instagram page appear to be brief clips, some of which look more like a commercial for men’s cologne than scenes from a real movie.
A Reddit post from a year ago calling attention to Zelocchi’s sci-fi film Angel’s Apocalypse somehow earning more audience votes than any other movie in the same genre.
In many ways, the crimes described in this complaint and the various related civil lawsuits would prefigure a disturbing new trend within English-speaking cybercrime communities that has bubbled up in the past few years: The emergence of “violence-as-as-service” offerings that allow cybercriminals to anonymously extort and intimidate their rivals.
Found on certain Telegram channels are solicitations for IRL or “In Real Life” jobs, wherein people hire themselves out as willing to commit a variety of physical attacks in their local geographic area, such as slashing tires, firebombing a home, or tossing a brick through someone’s window.
Many of the cybercriminals in this community have stolen tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency, and can easily afford to bribe police officers. KrebsOnSecurity would expect to see more of this in the future as young, crypto-rich cybercriminals seek to corrupt people in authority to their advantage.
So here’s a link to the Iris Au ‘cover story’ – it’s only 8 paragraphs long. It has 0 comments and literally NONE of the businesses she’s allegedly started are named, NONE of the many industries she’s conquered are named, and virtually NONE of the causes she supports are actually named…total (paid for?!) fluff piece, actually worse; it’s one of the most lacking pieces I’ve ever read! Way worse that PR Newswire sponsored BS content that saturates the internet here in the USA
https://womenpreneurme.com/the-story-of-iris-au-a-business-leader-and-helper-of-people/
“Iris’s journey began with just one startup, a new business she created from scratch. From there, she didn’t stop. She went on to create many more businesses in different industries, showing her talent and creativity. But Iris’s success is not just about making money. She cares deeply about making the world a better place. She supports causes that are important to her, like education, healthcare, and taking care of the environment.”
That whole site is suspiciously empty of any real info. I’ve been thumbing randomly through their “magazine” and every article shows “0” for comments, but there isn’t even a way to actually leave a comment. And the right section on any given page consists of a Search field, Recent Posts list, and a Categories list, then they’re repeated again ..to fill up space, I guess? And whether or not I have my adblocker on, the pages look exactly the same. The only difference is that with the adblocker on, 12 tracking site links are blocked. The only thing that looks like an ad on any given page is an Audi short from YouTube at the bottom of that weird repeated right section with a link to Audi Dubai’s site, but it’s just a plain link without the typical attribution code.
Krebs, you forgot one of the key guys in this story.
MILAD SARWARI a.k.a NotSpoof a.k.a Hackistan
Adam Iza’s Partner in Crime
Give him the rest of the story, and maybe he will write a followup article. Isn’t there a connection to the Path Network crypto scam too?
Crazy how much power money has over law enforcement. If cops can be bought so easily, it really makes you wonder how much we can trust the system.
I don’t
LASD are gangsters with badges
And no one in LA is at all surprised. It’s not even a secret.
https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history/
How many perps are in this story? I lost count. Also how did they game IMDB? Did I miss something?
@Brian, thank you for this article – very good and quite scary reading. Amazing how far this person got with their exploits, and how he basically gave a sh*t about his own associates. Just wow.
A nasty bunch, but the LEO corruption is the key to the story.
Has there been a state or fed investigation of the local LEOs?
There won’t be, this kind of thing is usually swept under the rug. There will be a few scapegoats tossed to the wolves, and a few mandatory retirements, but nothing serious.
The corruption of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is no surprise to anyone that follows LA news. It gets a little attention by the big media outlets and deep-dives by smaller outlets.
See rob’s earlier comment –
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/09/crooked-cops-stolen-laptops-the-ghost-of-ugnazi/#comment-616859
One of the very few reports that I found hard to follow.
yes, this. a tldr would be helpful.
yes, this. a tldr would be helpful.
yes, this. a tldr would be helpful.
The most disturbing part of the story is the corrupt sheriff deputies. (Not that it should be a surprise when it comes to LASD). I hope long prison terms are forthcoming.
This keeps adding to my pile of evidence that crypto is too associated with criminals allowing them to make money much more easily than if crypto were outlawed.
Agreed.
I can’t see any reason to mess with crypto unless I want to pay off some scammers to make life easier on them.
Oddly enough, I do have a bitcoin wallet just in case someone wants to accidentally send it some money. So far, it is still sitting at $0.00.
The way I look at it is if I have my money at the local bank and lose my info, I can go over there and sort it out with little effort and I’ll still have my money. But if I have my money in crypto and I lose my info, I lose all my money.
What a confusing story. Not the journalism, it’s spot on, I just don’t understand the big picture. So it’s a bunch of wannabe script kiddie cybercriminals from yesterdecade now turned actual fraudsters, pitting actual law enforcement against eachother? Swatting but with more “class”? Who is Iza and where does this money come from, surely not just a spoiled rich child of a prince or banker? Part 2 on the way? 😛
Great article. Like you, Brian, I was also stalked/ swatted by some of these people and their associates. That they were paying LA sheriffs deputies to fake arrests is interesting and explains some things. With these particular people you name, the game seems to have been to accumulate and flaunt unearned wealth. For every one at the top of the heap, there were so many involved in or caught up in the scams, or hangers-on further down the fringes. Lots of them were stalkers, conspiracy theorists, substance abusers, crypto scammers, and/or all-around crazy people. Many were or are people trying to make money by harming others by some means or other. As Tomi Masters (and others) found out, getting involved with these people can be disastrous and deadly. Speaking up about them makes one a target, as you found out. I had been wondering what happened to the two in prison in the Philippines. I am not sure I follow the story — some other crypto people sent them phones to harass them in prison? Maybe I need to reread the story.
Twice in the story “Manilla” is referred to. The capital of the Philippines is “Manila”
There are so many rich rabbit holes in this article.
Check out Enzo Zelocchi on Youtube. He’s got a channel with his “movies”, pay-to-play interviews and fake fan base Youtube channels.
Then the much darker rabbit hole is the Troy Woddy/Mir Islam story: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/tomi-masters-down-the-rabbit-hole-i-go
Well, I tried to go down the rabbit hole, but I cannot find anything about this after Nov 2019. Does anybody know if they were convicted?
Enzo does indeed have IMDb resume,’ weighted toward production. Joe Bob says, “Check it out.”
krebs your writing lately has been all over the place and difficult to follow
canm you please write about malone the la guy that stole over 200 mil and was spending 1 million per night in the club??
Just another reminder that the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department is nothing more than a criminal gang.
Simply amazing. Who owns the rights to this story, I smell a movie 😉
Should release the cop’s names and faces. They’re public servants, they’re supposed to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.
The story doesn’t cover it, but these cops were getting paid in their and their family members PERSONAL bank accounts DIRECTLY from Iza and his girlfriend. They weren’t concerned with laundering or hiding it at all. The original complaint also mentions tax evasion, so I’m guessing the IRS figured out this shtick before the “public corruption squad” within the FBI did. The fact it took from 2021 until now for this to get uncovered is extremely pathetic, and fortunately for these crooked cops this won’t be broadcast on any major news outlets, just another day in perfect America. Maybe in a couple years we’ll have “traffic stop shootout [guaranteed death]” services on telegram channels…
The front page of “The Secret Files” looks like a diddler bait site, LOL!
“I pay him 280k a month for complete resources. They’re active-duty.”
Recommended reading is “Left of Bang”, which helps with observation. Him? There is more to this than meets the eye, and the elevation may need to be raised. Think also that in the big scheme of things, who is this guy anyhow? If this is going on for an individual like this, maybe a tuna in the food chain, what’s going on for the big fish and whales? If you’re a shrimp in that pond, you better be of the preying mantis kind, or be scared…
Theft of cryptocurrency is, to me, a hilariously abstract concept, a kind of victimless crime, criminals against criminals. And why did these victims not lock their phones or keep their Swiss-blockchain number printout in the freezer like someone with half a brain?
“Lamborghinis, expensive jewelry, vacations, a $28 million home in Bel Air, even cosmetic surgery to extend the length of his legs.”
Legs? Hm… I’m just saying. An explanation would be in order, no?
Funny, our network security software indicates there are problems with the security certificate for the womenpreneurme[dot]com website, as other commenters had noted strange things. If I ignore the certificate warning, the site is further intercepted by our security software indicating its a known spam URL. Sounds like a fake magazine / webzine setup to lure in more folks with money.
The Instagram page with the YouTube viewership award has 1,337,xxx likes (aka “leet”) – clearly that is also faked/botted
Sometimes I feel that life in the United States just blows chunks.
Maybe for you that’s true.
Crazy bro
So, early retirement option put on the table as first option for the local police involved.
Imagine all the million dollar scams we never hear about.
Am I the only one that finds it funny Enzo Zelocchi is wearing the exact same Rolex watch that Adam Iza stole from Troy Woody? Look at Enzo’s instagram and look at Troy’s Instagram to match the model. Can’t say that I feel bad that his partner in crime got shorted, just more so shocked that the feds didn’t pick up Enzo with that scumbag.
Need More Popcorn! Forget Hulu.
I think cosmo is dead.