Thursday, July 23, 2026
Payment processing broker gets prison in fraud case
A payment processing broker based in Oregon was sentenced to three years in prison and forced to forfeit $460,000 from a scam that resulted in over $14 million in unauthorized debits and attempted debits from the bank accounts of unsuspecting customers.
According to court documents, Jeremy Todd Briley, of Happy Valley, Oregon, worked as a payment processing broker, connecting merchants with payment processors.
Briley's two largest clients were sham companies that falsely represented that they provided online marketing services to businesses, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. But they didn't provide such services. Instead, they stole from clients by fraudulently debiting their bank accounts. In all, they racked up over $14 million in unauthorized debits and attempted debits, according to the DOJ.
Scam ran for over six years
From February 2017 through December 2023, Briley obtained and maintained payment processing relationships for those sham companies so they could process fraudulent debits, knowing that those companies were debiting bank accounts illegally, according to court documents.
Despite repeatedly receiving information that the debits processed on behalf of the sham companies were not authorized by the victims, Briley concealed the criminal activities in various ways and arranged for a payment processor to deceive banks by manipulating return rates on the fraudulent debits, according to the DOJ.
In April, Briley plead guilty to one count of wire fraud. In addition to his prison term and forfeiture of $460,000 in proceeds of the fraud, Briley was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. led the investigation in the case. The prosecution was led by the DOJ, specifically the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact information, links and other details may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.
