WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Aug. 7 that it has charged 12 defendants with laundering millions of dollars in credit card charges via fraudulent merchant accounts.
The defendants purportedly used a deceptive operation entitled Money Now Funding (MNF) to obtain merchant accounts; they then ran close to $6 million through the network. The FTC charged MNF with deceptive business practices in 2013. It is currently charging a group of defendants with providing the MNF scheme access to credit card networks.
The FTC charged the defendants with violating the FTC Act and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule.
The ISO defendants in the case are Electronic Payment Systems LLC, Electronic Payment Transfer LLC, John Dorsey, Thomas McCann and Michael Peterson. The sales agent defendants are Electronic Payment Solutions of America Inc., Electronic Payment Services Inc., KMA Merchant Services LLC, Dynasty Merchants LLC, Jay Wigdore, Michael Abdelmesseh, also known as Michael Stewart, and Nikolas Mihilli.
The FTC voted 2-0 to authorize the staff to file the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.