A convicted bank robber is expected to be sentenced Thursday for running a nearly $1 million fraud scheme that targeted surfers at Southern California beaches whose bank cards and phones were lifted from their cars while they rode the waves.
Moundir Kamil, 56, of Orange County, pleaded guilty in September to one federal count each of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, attempted bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Two co-defendants pleaded guilty to the same charges.
According to court documents and media reports, a member of the crime ring would watch surfers in Malibu, Manhattan Beach, San Diego County and elsewhere stash their car keys before they paddled out. An accomplice on the beach would confirm that the surfer had entered the water, and give the all-clear to steal the key and break into the car.
Once the thieves had a wallet and phone, they handed the items to ring mastermind Kamil, who was able to hack facial recognition software and gain access to the phone’s apps, according to federal prosecutors.
While surfers were locked out of their cars, the thieves would empty bank accounts, investment holdings, crypto wallets and other money holding programs. In an especially devious twist, when credit card companies called to check if there was fraudulent activity stemming from a purchase at stores like Chanel or the Apple Store, the thieves, who had possession of the phone, would simply answer and approve the charges, documents show.
Stolen bank cards were used to purchase high-end luxury goods and expensive electronics, which Kamil would resell for cash during the course of the scheme which operated from April 2021 through December 2022, prosecutors said.
Co-defendants Jordan Adams and Jennifer Pruneda previously pleaded guilty to the same charges as Kamil, but subsequent information in their cases is sealed from public view.
When arrested, Kamil had pictures of hundreds of stolen credit cards and debit cards belonging to identity theft victims, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is asking that he be sentenced to six years and three months in prison, and ordered to pay over $1 million in restitution and fees.
Court papers show Kamil, a Moroccan national whose legality in the United States is unclear, has a long criminal history.
“Every single one of defendant’s prior convictions, which include bank robbery, bank fraud, receipt of stolen property, and vehicle theft, relate to larceny and fraud,” federal prosecutors wrote in sentencing papers. “He additionally has a pending case for grand theft and second-degree burglary, which was committed while (he) was on supervised release for the (current) case. Even being supervised and tracked with location monitoring during a pending federal criminal case could not deter him from committing almost the identical scheme with new co-conspirators.”
The document continued, “This demonstrated history of recidivism along with the nature of the instant offense that spanned over multiple years and involved multiple victims establish a deep entrenchment in criminal activity and defendant’s willingness to put his interests above that of society’s time and time again.”
Prosecutors say Kamil caused a loss of $979,772.84 to several financial institutions during the scheme.
In 2011, Kamil pleaded guilty to stealing a tax refund check for more than $1 million dollars from real estate mogul Donald Bren, the billionaire chairman of the Irvine Company. In addition to time served and three years of probation, Kamil was ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution.
Before the theft from Bren, Kamil served 30 months in prison for a series of bank robberies in Orange County for which he was nicknamed the “Give Me More Bandit,” because of demands for extra cash from tellers.