Two Chicago residents were sentenced to prison Thursday for their roles in defrauding a North Pole restaurant of over $128,000 from July to August 2022.
Jacob Centeno, 40, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and will serve three years on supervised release, while his co-defendant, Amber Davila, 36, was sentenced to two years in prison and will serve three years on supervised release.
According to court documents, in August 2022, the owner of the North Pole restaurant noticed funds missing from a business bank account. The victim discovered that between August 4 and 9, 2022, all of the funds intended for deposit into the restaurant’s account had been diverted to an unrecognised bank account.
The total amount of funds diverted was $128,246.05.
An investigation revealed that Centeno and Davila opened and used two shell companies in Chicago to steal the restaurant’s funds. In July 2021, they registered Eros LLC and opened a business bank account for the company.
In July 2022, the defendants used stolen personal information to register Orodmedline LLC and opened another business bank account for that company.
On July 29, 2022, an unknown co-conspirator surreptitiously changed the business bank account information connected to the restaurant to the fraudulent Orodmedline LLC bank account so that the funds could be diverted.
An email confirming the account change was sent to the restaurant, but Centeno, Davila and their co-conspirator unlawfully accessed the victim’s email, filled out the confirmation form and returned it to the sender. They then deleted all the email traffic to conceal their actions.
Centeno and Davila used the stolen funds from the Orodmedline LLC account to purchase over $41,000 in money orders in Chicago. Centeno and Davila deposited the money orders into various personal and business accounts in amounts of less than $10,000 to avoid Bank Secrecy Act reporting requirements, and then moved the money to other accounts to further conceal their scheme.
Centeno and Davila were indicted in June 2024 and pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2025. Centeno and Davila both pleaded guilty to all 16 counts of the indictment. In handing down the sentence, the court reiterated that the lasting impact the defendant’s conduct will have on the victims in this case.
“Mr. Centeno and Ms. Davila orchestrated an elaborate fraud scheme from Chicago to steal over $100,000 from a small business in North Pole, Alaska – 3,300 miles away,” said U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska.
“To fund their own fraudulent lifestyle, the defendants’ complex and interstate fraud scheme involved stealing funds from a local business in North Pole, Alaska, affecting innocent victims along the way,” said Special Agent in Charge Rebecca Day of the FBI Anchorage Field Office.
