Final defendant sentenced in $100m dietary supplement fraud and money laundering scheme

Date: March 4, 2026

Contact: [email protected]

Salt Lake City, UT - A Utah man was sentenced to 36 months' imprisonment by U.S. District Court Judge David Barlow for his involvement in a years-long moneymaking scheme that misled banks and deceived consumers.

Phillip Gannuscia of Salt Lake City pleaded guilty on April 9, 2025, to conspiracy to commit money laundering. In addition to his term of imprisonment, the court ordered Gannuscia to 24 months of supervised release and the forfeiture of his Porsche 911 convertible that was traceable to the scheme.

According to court documents and statements made at Gannuscia's change of plea and sentencing hearings, from around December 2018 through April 2022, Gannuscia engaged in a scheme and artifice to defraud. The scheme involved applying for credit card processing accounts with fake companies, created with the personal information of family and friends. These accounts would be used to process consumer sales of nutraceutical and dietary products. Because the sales came from misleading and deceptive advertising, the credit card processing accounts would get shut down frequently due to high numbers of refunds or "chargebacks." To work around these shutdowns, Gannuscia, along with others, helped set up the fake companies, used the credit card processing accounts for payments from consumers, and then laundered the proceeds.

At the time of his involvement in the scheme, Gannuscia was subject to a court order permanently enjoining and restraining him from credit card laundering and making or assisting others in making false statements to obtain credit card processing services. He admitted to setting up the operations for the scheme to shield himself from public view and accountability. He directed others to forge and paste signatures on documents for the fake companies.

Gannuscia admitted to laundering money on numerous occasions, each involving more than $10,000 of fraud proceeds. The total gain attributable to Gannuscia was more than $1.5 million.

The case was investigated by the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and FDA Office of Criminal Investigations.

Assistant United States Attorneys Brent L. Andrus and Luisa Gough of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah prosecuted the case.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.