SANTA ANA – A customs dealer was arrested Feb. 10 on a federal grand jury indictment charging him with evading the fee of $1.5 million in taxes and interesting in a $3.4 million wire fraud scheme that overcharged a Japanese selection retailer consumer on customs duties.
Frank Seung Noah, 59, of Corona self-surrendered to regulation enforcement and was anticipated to be arraigned in U.S. District Courtroom in Santa Ana. He’s charged with one depend of tax evasion and three counts of wire fraud.
In keeping with the indictment, Noah owned and operated Comis Worldwide Inc., a logistics and supply-chain firm primarily based out of Cerritos, which provided customs import brokerage providers on behalf of companies. From 2007 to 2019, Comis was a customs import dealer for Daiso, a Japan-based selection and worth retailer with shops within the U.S., together with Southern California.
From March 2016 till February 2019, Noah – appearing by way of Comis – paid customs import obligation charges to U.S. Customs and Border Safety on Daiso’s behalf. Noah then allegedly submitted invoices to Daiso that fraudulently inflated the customs import obligation charges that Noah had paid to CBP. Because of Noah’s scheme, Daiso paid the inflated invoices, inflicting Noah to fraudulently receive a complete of not less than roughly $3,379,774, the indictment alleges.
For instance, on Sept. 15, 2017, Daiso wired $192,486 to a Noah-controlled checking account, of which roughly $74,840 was a results of inflated invoices, in line with the indictment.
Noah additionally allegedly willfully tried to evade the fee of roughly $1,562,684 in federal taxes which the IRS assessed in opposition to him for the calendar years 2008, 2009 and 2010. He allegedly did so by making small funds to the IRS, all whereas making a lot bigger funds on mortgages for properties he managed – regardless that they had been purchased in his girlfriend’s identify – together with his Corona residence bought in 2016 and a trip property in Rancho Mirage that was bought the next yr.
Noah allegedly used funds transferred to his girlfriend’s checking account to pay the mortgage on the Corona property and to a rustic membership. In September 2017, after Noah acquired roughly $147,148 from the sale of a property he owned in Carson, he wrote a $120,000 examine to his girlfriend. He additionally allegedly made false statements to the IRS throughout this time by underreporting his revenue.
From 2014 to 2017, Noah allegedly cashed greater than $7 million in checks as an alternative of depositing the funds into his private or enterprise financial institution accounts to hide his management over such funds.
Together with penalties and curiosity, as of February 2022, Noah owes roughly $2,012,618 to the IRS, in line with the indictment.
An indictment comprises allegations {that a} defendant has dedicated a criminal offense. Each defendant is presumed to be harmless till and except confirmed responsible in court docket.
If convicted of all expenses, Noah would face a statutory most sentence of 5 years in federal jail for the tax evasion depend and 20 years in jail for every wire fraud depend.
IRS Felony Investigation, Homeland Safety Investigations, and U.S. Customs and Border Safety investigated this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel Ahn and Daniel Lim of the Santa Ana Department Workplace are prosecuting this case.
