NEWARK, N.J. — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - New Jersey), published as received.

NEWARK, N.J. – A New York man was sentenced to two years in prison for laundering the proceeds of elder fraud and computer fraud schemes, U.S. Attorney John Giordano announced.

Hector Claveria 51, of Elmhurst, New York, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in Newark federal court on March 26, 2025 following his guilty to Count Two of an Indictment charging him with international money laundering.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

In early 2020, Claveria acted as a money mule for a fraudulent scheme by picking up numerous packages that contained cash that he knew were proceeds of illegal activity. He then laundered some of this money in June 2020 by wiring $20,000 from his U.S. bank account to a foreign bank account. These funds were the proceeds of two fraudulent schemes: The first was an elder-fraud scheme in which the perpetrators tricked elderly victims into believing that they owed money to various government agencies and companies, and then into sending payments to locations identified by the perpetrators. The second was a computer-fraud scheme in which perpetrators tricked victims into believing that they owed money to a computer services company, and then into sending payments to locations identified by the perpetrators, purportedly at the direction of the computer company. At the time Claveria wired the funds to a foreign account, he knew that the transfer was designed to conceal and disguise the nature of the funds.

In additional the prison term, Judge Salas sentenced Claveria to three years of supervised release. Claveria was also ordered to forfeit $20,000.

U.S. Attorney Giordano credited special agents of the Social Security Administration Office, of the Inspector General, Boston-New York Field Division, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Bradley Parker.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Chana Zuckier of the Bank Integrity, Money Laundering and Recovery Unit and Jennifer Kozar of the Economic Crimes Unit in Newark.

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Defense counsel: Vinoo Varghese, Esq.