An Ohio businessman is jailed on charges he perpetuated a $10 million real estate scam that also duped several Miami Heat players.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, Haider Zafar masterminded a scam that victimized Mike Miller and other unidentified Heat players which resulted in him raising as much as $8 million for his bogus dealings. In a recent U.S. District Court hearing, Judge Edmund A. Sargus ordered him jailed without bail because he is a flight risk and a danger to the community.
“The longer the potential sentence, the greater the risk of flight,” Sargus said. Punishment for each of the 135 counts filed against Zafar ranges from one to 20 years in prison.
Zafar has been in custody since his late May arrest by Internal Revenue Service agents at Port Columbus. At the time of being taken into custody, Zafar had a Louis Vuitton backpack with more than $10,000 in cash, a handgun, 40 bullets and an expired Pakistani passport.
During an earlier detention hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dale Williams put international-investment attorney Andrew Fine on the stand to detail an investment scheme Zafar allegedly operated throughout Florida.
Fine alleged some Miami Heat players, including Miller, and other Florida residents had invested at least $8 million in the scheme. Fine also testified that when he questioned Zafar about where the money was he told him, “They can’t touch me in Pakistan.”
“He’s fantastically good at separating people from their money,” Fine later told reporters.
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