US Judge Orders Lee Elbaz to Pay $28 Million in Restitution

After being sentenced to prison towards the end of last year, Lee Elbaz, otherwise known as Lena Green, will have to pay restitution of $28 million to victims of the binary options scam she helped orchestrate.

According to a court order issued on the 7th of August 2020, Judge Theodore D. Chuang of the Maryland District Court determined that Lee Elbaz, the former CEO of Israel-based Yukom Communications, has been ordered to pay $28 million in restitution for her participation in a $145 million fraud scheme carried out by Israeli-run binary options websites.

Although the estimated loss attributable to agents of Yukom, Numaris or Linkopia is more than $106 million, according to Michael J. Petron, a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner, the Government seeks the conservative restitution amount of $28 million.

"Out of an abundance of caution, and consistent with the information made available to the Court at sentencing, the Government seeks only a conservative restitution amount of $28 million," Judge Chuang said in the document seen by Finance Magnates. "The Court finds that this methodology, as more fully described in Petron’s declaration, ECF No. 367-1, was sound and yields a reasonable estimate of the loss to victims attributable to Elbaz."

Judge Chuang said that where the government has met its burden, Lee Elbaz offers no contrary evidence and provides no persuasive argument to undermine the Government’s calculation.

Elbaz’s Judgement of Conviction has been ordered by the Court to be amended to include the restitution amount of $28 million. Furthermore, a finding will be added to the conviction stating that Elbaz is jointly liable for the amounts contained in the prior restitution orders against employees involved in the binary options fraud: Lissa Mel, Shira Uzan, Yair Hadar, Leora Welles, and Austin Smith.

US Prosecutors Pushing for Lee Elbaz to Pay $28m

As Finance Magnates reported, United States prosecutors were pushing for Elbaz to pay the $28 million in restitution. This followed Lee Elbaz being sentenced to 22 years in prison in December of 2019. In particular, Elbaz was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud.

Throughout this duplicity, thousands of investors were scammed. According to a report from the Associated Press, prosecutors said that the scheme cost investors more than $137 million from May of 2014 to June of 2017.

Elbaz was arrested in 2017 after travelling to New York and was indicted in March 2018 alongside 15 defendants in the case. In August, she was convicted by a federal jury in connection with a vast binary options scheme to defraud investors all over the world.