Business Owner Sentenced To Four Years In Prison For Multimillion-Dollar Ponzi Fraud Scheme

LAS VEGAS - A Las Vegas business owner was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for fraudulently obtaining nearly $4 million dollars from a food brokerage company.

According to court documents, Richard Vairo owned Richard's Brazilian Sausage LLC, a Florida company that purportedly sold sausage to grocery stores in Florida. From September 2021 to about October 2022, he carried out a scheme to solicit money from a Las Vegas food brokerage company to increase the sales of sausage to a supermarket chain. As part of the scheme, he falsely stated that he would repay the food brokerage company a percentage of the gross profits received from the sausage sales. He sent false weekly statements to the food brokerage company; and repeatedly misrepresented that a bank had placed a hold on the funds in the bank account. He never sold sausages to the supermarket.

Throughout the scheme, Vairo used a social media messaging application and emails to misrepresent that he was selling to the supermarket. The food brokerage company loaned Vairo nearly $11 million, and Vairo repaid the food brokerage company about $7 million, using the victims' own money as if the repayment came from sales to the supermarket. In total, the food brokerage company had a net loss of about $3,887,620. Vairo used the money he fraudulently obtained from the food brokerage company to support his lifestyle, to pay his bills and debts, and to conduct his business activities.

Vairo pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud. In addition to imprisonment, Chief United States District Judge Andrew P. Gordon sentenced Vairo to three years of supervised release.

First Assistant United States Attorney Sigal Chattah for the District of Nevada and Special Agent in Charge Christopher S. Delzotto for the FBI Las Vegas Division made the announcement.

The FBI investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorney Daniel R. Schiess prosecuted the case.

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