Florida, Virginia residents indicted in $26 million wire fraud and money laundering scheme

 

Date: Dec. 5, 2025

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Pittsburgh, PA – A resident of Orlando, Florida, and a resident of Vienna, Virginia, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, First Assistant United States Attorney Troy Rivetti announced today.

The six-count Indictment named Trevaughn J. Yearwood, a/k/a Larry Wood of Florida currently in custody in the Clearfield County Jail on unrelated state charges, and Amit Kumar Jain, a/k/a Buddy Patel of Virginia as defendants.

According to the Indictment, which was unsealed following Jain’s arrest today in Virginia, Jain and Yearwood conspired to defraud senior citizens in Western Pennsylvania and throughout the United States in an elder fraud scheme in which conspirators used deceptive emails that led victims to give Yearwood, Jain, and their co-conspirators tens of thousands of dollars in cash or to make substantial deposits of cash into bitcoin ATMs. The Indictment alleges that, between January 2024 and August 2025, Jain and his co-conspirators operated fictitious entities through which Jain and others laundered approximately $26 million of victim funds through accounts held at a Vienna, Virginia, bank.

The law provides for a maximum total sentence of up to 40 years in prison, a fine of up to $1 million, or both for Jain, and up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both for Yearwood. Under the federal Sentencing Guidelines, the actual sentence imposed would be based upon the seriousness of the offenses and the prior criminal history, if any, of the defendant.

Assistant United States Attorney Gregory C. Melucci is prosecuting this case on behalf of the government.

The Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Mt. Lebanon (Pa.) Police Department conducted the investigation leading to the Indictment.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.