Adam Iza sentenced to 78 months for Meta fraud and hiring ex-deputies

Adam Iza, the man who went by the nickname “Crypto Godfather,” was sentenced in federal court on October 5, 2026, to 78 months in prison. That is a little more than six years for a rap sheet that reads like three separate crime dramas stitched together. The charges covered wire fraud tied to roughly $37 million siphoned through Meta’s advertising systems, tax evasion, and conspiracy against rights. That last one stems from Iza putting former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies on his payroll to lean on people he considered adversaries. A Meta hustle, a tax bill, and a payroll full of badges Iza entered a guilty plea in January 2025 and has been in federal custody since September 2024. The new 78-month term will run concurrently with a 15-year sentence he already received in a separate Connecticut case. Concurrent means the sentences overlap rather than stack. So the six-plus years largely sits inside the longer Connecticut term, not on top of it. The core of the federal case was a scheme that ran from December 2020 to September 2024. Iza hijacked Meta Platforms Inc. business-manager accounts and sold access to them to advertising firms. The scheme generated approximate...