The owner of a moving company based in Hollywood and a man who worked as a driver have been indicted for their role in a fraud scheme that allegedly conned people out of thousands of dollars and their household belongings, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Avraham Zano, 41, of Hollywood, and Sofein Mlayah, 28, of North Miami Beach, were indicted by a grand jury last week on charges of conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property, wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property and failure to give up possession of household goods.
Zano made his first appearance in court Tuesday. Mlayah is expected to surrender himself to authorities in Colorado on Thursday before being extradited to South Florida, according to prosecutors.
Between December 2020 and June of this year, Zano and Mlayah used Zano’s company, Zano Moving and Storage LLC, to get moving jobs through moving broker companies. The companies negotiated costs with customers and then subcontracted Zano Moving and Storage, prosecutors said.
Once the customers had their quotes, Zano and Mlayah, along with other drivers, would show up at their homes on dates different from what was originally scheduled and late at night, the indictment says.
Zano and Mlayah told the victims the move would cost more than what they’d been told, in some cases demanding as much as two or three times the original amount, court records say. If they refused, they told the victims they would risk losing their deposit.
After being pressured, the victims agreed on prices lower than the increased price Zano and Mlayah demanded “but much higher” still than the original estimate, the indictment says.
Victims were told to pay at least half of the higher fees when Zano and his co-defendant were loading their belongings into moving trucks and had victims promise they’d pay the other half once their items were delivered, court records say. But the items were never delivered.
Text messages that Zano and Mlayah had sent several victims included in the indictment show the two blamed the weather, truck repairs or claimed their belongings would arrive at a later date.
“Despite these promises, the household goods were never delivered,” the indictment alleges.
One victim planned to move from California to Connecticut using Zano’s company, paying a partial payment of $1,870 on July 15. The victim’s belongings were supposed to be in Connecticut 10 days later, but by late October the victim was still texting Zano asking when they’d arrive, the indictment says.
The person’s items were found left in a storage facility in Nevada. At least seven victims’ belongings were found in Nevada, Arizona and California, according to the indictment.
If convicted, Zano and Mlayah face up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said.
