Ataollah Aminpour, 60, of Beverly Hills, is going to prison for 70 months after admitting to a brazen loan fraud scheme that gutted Mirae Bank, a now-defunct Koreatown lender. The former chief marketing officer exploited his position to funnel more than $15 million in fraudulent loans, falsifying purchase prices, borrower assets, and down payments — all while raking in commissions and pocketing loan overages.
Sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer, Aminpour was ordered to pay $7,519,084 in restitution and immediately remanded into federal custody. Once free on bond, the fall of the man known also as John and Johnny Aminpour marks the end of a years-long deception that helped unravel a financial institution built to serve Los Angeles’s Korean-American community.
Aminpour pleaded guilty in December 2017 to one felony count of making a false statement to a financial institution. Court documents reveal he posed as a financial facilitator, promising borrowers easy access to gas station and car wash financing with little or no money down. But behind the scenes, he inflated business purchase prices on loan applications — including a Maywood car wash where he claimed a $6.65 million price tag when the actual cost was $3.25 million.
Between 2005 and 2007, Aminpour and accomplices submitted six loan applications laden with lies — totaling $16.7 million. The bank’s losses on these alone exceeded $7.5 million. He also circumvented down payment rules by funneling money into escrow accounts, creating the illusion of borrower equity. The result: high-risk loans with no real collateral, and Aminpour cashing in either through commissions or direct theft of excess loan proceeds.
But the damage didn’t stop there. Aminpour referred approximately $150 million in loans to Mirae Bank over the years. When the bank collapsed in 2009, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stepped in as receiver. FDIC and Wilshire Bank — which acquired Mirae’s assets and now operates as Bank of Hope — suffered combined losses exceeding $33 million on loans tied to Aminpour’s network.
The investigation was led by the FDIC’s Office of Inspector General, the FBI, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kerry L. Quinn of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted the case — a federal reckoning for a man who turned a community bank into his personal piggy bank.
Related Federal Cases
Key Facts
- State: California
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
🔒 Get the grimiest stories delivered weekly. Subscribe free →
Browse More
