A 26-year-old cryptocurrency entrepreneur who paid Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies roughly $100,000 a month to serve as his private muscle has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for running a scheme that netted tens of millions of dollars while corrupting sworn law enforcement officers to intimidate and extort his rivals. Adam Iza admitted generating the money through fraud and concealing millions from the IRS, then using that wealth to employ and corrupt active-duty deputies who used their badges, firearms and court-authorized search warrants against people he considered enemies.
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson ordered Iza’s sentence to run concurrently with the 15-year federal prison term he is already serving for an attempted Bitcoin robbery and kidnapping in Danbury, Connecticut, in August 2024, according to the Los Angeles Times. That means the new California sentence, handed down after Iza pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and tax evasion, adds no additional time to his actual prison stay, a point underscored by the Department of Justice. Federal prosecutors in Connecticut announced that 15-year sentence on September 9, after the Danbury victims were targeted because their son was linked to a massive cryptocurrency theft.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles had requested a nearly five-year prison sentence for Iza, per the Times report. Assistant U.S. Attorney Maxwell Coll said a substantial custodial sentence was necessary to deter clients from corrupting law-enforcement officers, while Iza told the court he took full responsibility for his actions. His attorney, Josef Sadat, called Judge Anderson “a godsend,” according to the same account.
How Off-Duty Deputies Became Iza’s Private Army
Court records cited by the Times show Iza hired off-duty LASD deputies as personal security beginning in August 2021 and employed them through April 2022, operating out of his Bel Air estate. The deputies conspired with Iza to obtain confidential law enforcement information about people involved in his financial disputes, used court-authorized search warrants to track and harass victims, and were enlisted to intimidate and threaten them.
In one episode, Iza directed two deputies to unholster their firearms while demanding that a victim identified as R.C. transfer $25,000 to a bank account tied to Iza’s crypto platform, Zort, which he built as a trading operation. Iza also caused R.C. to be arrested for illegal drugs found in his vehicle, and one deputy misled a narcotics detective in a way that resulted in a drug raid on R.C.’s home, the Times reported. The security company funneling deputies to Iza paid one of them close to $100,000 a month beginning in September 2021.
In October 2021, Iza directed deputies to restrain a victim identified as L.A. from leaving his home, held that person at gunpoint, and forced a transfer of $127,000 into one of his own bank accounts, according to the Times account. Months later, in March 2022, Iza directed an employee to assault a victim identified as D.D. in an effort to obtain a laptop containing cryptocurrency. Iza believed another victim, E.Z., possessed a laptop holding a large amount of crypto; his bodyguard brandished a firearm at E.Z., and a deputy falsely claimed he needed to track E.Z.’s cellphone as part of a firearms investigation. Iza also directed deputies to gather personal identifying information about E.Z., D.D., their relatives and acquaintances. Three armed people eventually forced their way into E.Z.’s home and made him surrender the laptop.
A Network of Deputies Now Facing Prison Time
At least five former sheriff’s deputies have now been sentenced to prison in connection with the scheme, the Times reported. Former deputy Eric Chase Saavedra, who ran the private security firm Saavedra & Associates LLC that supplied deputies to guard Iza, was sentenced September 28 to 21 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $90,984 in restitution, according to the Department of Justice. Saavedra, a former LASD detective and federal task force officer, had charged Iza roughly $100,000 a month for round-the-clock protection from August 2021 through March 2022 and surrendered luxury items purchased during the conspiracy, including 32 Louis Vuitton bags, 27 pairs of Gucci shoes, five Louis Vuitton wallets and a commercial money-counting machine as part of his plea agreement.
Former deputy Scott Allen Simpkins, who served on the LASD SWAT team and worked six to eight off-duty security shifts for Iza’s firm, was sentenced July 13 to 18 months in federal prison and fined $10,000 for lying to FBI agents about witnessing Iza extort $25,000 from a party planner at his Bel Air mansion, the justice department said. Former deputy Michael David Coberg received the longest sentence of the group — 63 months in federal prison — for extorting and falsely arresting Iza’s business rivals, according to the Internal Revenue Service. A fourth deputy, David Anthony Rodriguez, was sentenced July 20 to 12 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to submitting a false search warrant application to a state court judge while working private security for Iza’s network.
Oversight Rules That Failed to Stop the Scheme
Sheriff’s department personnel seeking outside work as private security guards are required under LASD Policy 3-01/060.33 to submit a form for unit commander approval and remain bound by department ethics rules while off duty, rules that explicitly bar improper police action or conflicts of interest while moonlighting. The scandal also extended beyond the deputies themselves: Iza’s former girlfriend, Iris Ramaya Au, pleaded guilty in March 2025 to failing to report $2.6 million in illicit income tied to Iza’s operations between 2020 and 2023, after admitting to laundering funds through shell accounts, as reported by New Santa Ana.
As part of his own plea, Iza agreed to forfeit two Mercedes-Benz vehicles, a Ferrari, dozens of luxury handbags from Hermès, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, a black-and-yellow Jacob & Co. “Godfather” watch, and three “Godfather” sculptures, according to the Times report. Iza, who formerly resided in Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, had been held in continuous federal custody since September 2024, pleading guilty in California in January 2025 and in Connecticut in June 2026 before this week’s sentencing closed out the Los Angeles case. Hoodline previously reported on Saavedra’s sentencing in September.
