Farmingdale man pleads guilty in loan scheme that targeted small business owners
A Farmingdale man pleaded guilty in connection with a fee loan scheme that targeted small business owners and had more than 35 victims outside New York, prosecutors announced Saturday.
Demetrios Boudourakis, 46, pleaded guilty Friday to grand larceny, Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini said in a statement. Based on his plea agreement, Boudourakis is expected to be sentenced to five to 10 years in prison with restitution orders totaling about $1 million, according to the statement.
A 2018 investigation conducted by several agencies including Nassau and Suffolk police and sheriff’s departments along with the New York State Police, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration found that Boudourakis, also known as “Jimmy,” started the fraud scheme as early as October 2016 with his co-conspirators, prosecutors said. In a “boiler room” operation, they typically cold-called small businesses and used high-pressure sales tactics to sell fraudulent loans, collecting advance fees without ever providing the loans, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the scheme was determined to have generated stolen proceeds in excess of $2 million.
“This is a great result for the victims of this scam, many of whom were hard-working small business owners,” Sini said in a statement. “The fact that Mr. Boudourakis is now facing significant jail time sends a clear message that we will not tolerate fraud or theft, and that we will hold criminal enterprises like this one accountable.”
From 2016 through 2018, Boudourakis operated out of a building on Broadhollow Road in Melville, prosecutors said. In May 2018, Boudourakis left the Melville location and worked from a storefront on Merrick Road in Seaford under the name “Federal Business Lenders” until his arrest on June 11, 2019.
