SANTA ANA, California – In a shocking scheme, professional poker player Seyed Reza Ali Fazeli, 49, has been indicted on wire fraud charges that allegedly bilked investors out of over $6 million.
Fazeli, who resides in Aliso Viejo, California, was named in a two-count indictment returned Wednesday by a federal grand jury. The indictment alleges that Fazeli ran a Las Vegas-based ticket business called Summit Entertainment, which also operated under the names onlinetickets.com and pacertickets.com.
From May 2016 through at least May 2017, Fazeli solicited investors in Orange County, Houston, and Las Vegas to send approximately $6.2 million to Summit to purchase tickets to the 2017 Super Bowl and the 2018 World Cup. Fazeli allegedly told investors that Summit would resell the tickets at a substantial profit and share the proceeds with the investors.
However, investors wired more than $6 million to Summit to purchase tickets for last year’s Super Bowl, but after the event Fazeli failed to provide any profit distribution to investors, according to the indictment. Fazeli allegedly falsely told the victims that the ticket sales did not go well because the NFL prohibited their resale and that he was working on a settlement with the NFL.
According to court documents, Fazeli never purchased large amounts of Super Bowl or World Cup tickets as promised. Instead, he used the money for gambling expenses at the Aria and Bellagio casinos in Las Vegas and for personal expenses.
“An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court,” officials stated.
“If he were to be convicted of the two charges in the indictment, Fazeli would face a statutory maximum penalty of 40 years in federal prison,” Assistant United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally noted.
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Key Facts
- State: California
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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