Andre Prince, an employee of a Brooklyn moving company, was sentenced to 24 months in prison Wednesday for his participation in a fraudulent scheme.
Prince was convicted in December 2023 of conspiracy to commit wire fraud following a one-week trial. As part of the sentence, Prince was ordered to pay forfeiture in the amount of $100,000, according to a press release.
“The defendant enticed victims to use the moving companies he worked for and then held their belongings hostage to substantially higher prices and the threat of auctioning them off unless they agreed to the fraudulent demands,” said Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “For his crime of conviction, it is Prince who will be moving, to a federal prison. My office is committed to protecting consumers from costly and fraudulent schemes in the moving industry.”
As proven at trial, between at least January 2017 and August 2020, Prince and co-defendant Kristy Mak worked for a number of moving companies controlled by co-defendant Yakov Moroz, which operated under various names including Great Moving USA, Green Movers, New City Moves, Cross Country Moving and Storage and Movers Consulting.
Mak was a customer service representative for the companies and supervised Prince, who, as a senior sales representative was responsible for convincing individuals to choose one of the fraudulent moving companies. The defendants lured customers to these movers by posting fake reviews online and having sales associates offer low-cost transportation of their household goods.
After a contract was signed and, in some cases, after the customer’s belongings were loaded on the truck, the movers would spring new expenses on them. If the customer tried contacting the sales associate about the surprise fees, that person was unreachable, and the customers were faced with drivers who threatened to hold their goods hostage unless they paid additional fees which were sometimes double or triple the original estimated cost.
In one conversation on the Slack messaging app, Prince reacted to two memes sent to him from another salesperson depicting their scheme to cut off contact with the customer on the day of the move, stating: “[rolling on the floor laughing emoji] that is so accurate.” As a result of the fraudulent scheme, the defendants, together with others, wrongfully obtained more than $3 million from over 800 victims.
Mak, who was convicted at trial of the same wire fraud conspiracy charge as Prince, is awaiting sentencing. Moroz absconded while on pre-trial release and is currently a fugitive.
If you have been the victim of a similar fraud, a complaint can be filed with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration at https://nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov/nccdb/home.aspx.
