GREENBELT, Md — A 65-year-old man has pleaded guilty to a scheme to commit wire fraud and defraud a company of more than $1.7 million.
According to his plea agreement, Ivan Victor Thrane was the owner and president of three construction companies operating in Dickerson and Beltsville and admitted that between August 2015 and January 2017 he conspired with the project manager of Victim Company 1 to defraud that company by submitting fraudulant payments for work purportedly performed by the companies.
In fact, the companies had not performed all of the work indicated on the payment requests and, in some cases, had not performed any work on projects for which Thrane was requesting payment.
From approximately September 2015 to December 2016, Victim Company 1 paid the companies approximately $3,294,675.34 as a result of payment requests submitted as part of the conspiracy and scheme to defraud.
Upon receipt of these payments from Victim Company 1, Thrane issued approximately 34 kickback payments, totaling approximately $1,740,330 in checks written to his co-conspirator.
On January 3, 2017, after discovering the fraud scheme, Victim Company 1 reversed or voided payments totaling approximately $741,525 to the Thrane companies. Thrane admits that the actual and intended loss attributable to him as a result of the scheme is between $1.5 million and $3.5 million.
As part of his plea agreement, Thrane is required to forfeit and pay restitution in the full amount of the victim’s losses still outstanding, which is at least $988,805.
Thrane faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the wire fraud conspiracy.
