‘A thief and a crooked cop’: L.A. deputy committed crimes for crypto mogul, feds say
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- Eric Chase Saavedra, an active L.A. County deputy and former federal task force officer, agreed this week to plead guilty to conspiracy and tax crimes.
- Saavedra carried out the criminal bidding of Adam Iza, a crypto mogul known as ‘The Godfather,’ including obtaining false search warrants on his behalf.
- Iza, 24, has also agreed to plead guilty to federal charges, including wire fraud.
A longtime detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s anti-gang unit has admitted to violating the civil rights of multiple victims through intimidation, illegal search warrants and other abuses of power, according to plea agreements filed this week.
Eric Chase Saavedra, an L.A. County deputy and former federal task force officer, agreed this week to plead guilty to conspiracy and tax crimes tied to his role in carrying out the criminal bidding of Adam Iza, a crypto mogul known as “The Godfather,” officials said. Saavedra faces up to 13 years in prison.
Iza, 24, has agreed to plead guilty to similar charges, in addition to wire fraud. He faces up to 35 years in prison, though the plea deal is likely to lighten his sentence. Iza has been in custody since September and last month was transported to Las Vegas for surgery to remove rods from a leg-lengthening surgery that prosecutors say he paid for with money hidden from tax collectors.
As far back as 2021, Iza paid Saavedra’s private security company — a business he ran on the side in addition to working as a deputy — $100,000 per month for round-the-clock bodyguards, court filings say. The hired muscle protected Iza and sometimes committed crimes for him, according to Saavedra’s plea agreement. For each 12-hour shift, Saavedra admitted, he picked two from a roster of 20 to 25 active deputies, paying them $750 cash. Even though it wasn’t official department work, some of the deputies often carried firearms and flashed their LASD badges, according to the agreement.
Saavedra, 41, also admitted to illegally using his department credentials to access sensitive law enforcement databases and obtain personal identifiable information about people Iza had personal or business disputes with, as well as their associates and family members.
In one case, Saavedra created a fake search warrant that he used to intimidate someone, according to the agreement. In another, the deputy admitted, he misled a narcotics detective, resulting in a drug raid on the home of a man Iza had previously extorted. In a third case, Saavedra said he lied to get a warrant, falsely claiming he needed to track a man’s cellphone as part of a firearms investigation.
After he got the warrant and discovered the victim’s location, he gave that information to Iza — and later three people with guns tried to break into the man’s home.
“Mr. Iza’s and Mr. Saavedra’s relationship was little more than a thuggish partnership between a thief and a crooked cop,” said IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Tyler Hatcher. “The public should be able to trust members of law enforcement, but Mr. Saavedra violated his oath for a payday.”
Both Iza and Saavedra’s plea agreements describe an array of criminal acts involving Saavedra and other unnamed sheriff’s deputies, who allegedly harassed and threatened people to further Iza’s criminal aims. So far, at least six deputies have been relieved of duty in connection with the case, as The Times reported last year. The Sheriff’s Department confirmed Friday afternoon that Saavedra was among them, saying he’d been relieved of duty as of Sept. 23.
“This deplorable behavior is a direct violation of Department standards, betrays public trust, and tarnishes the reputation of all deputies and the entire Department,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. “Those who misuse their badge to exploit their power for personal gain through illegal activities have no place in law enforcement and must be held accountable. They have no place in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”
At least six L.A. County sheriff’s deputies have been relieved of duty amid an investigation into their work for a 24-year-old cryptocurrency entrepreneur accused of extortion and hiding millions of dollars from tax collectors.
In a statement, Iza’s attorney, Josef Sadat, referred to his client as “one of the smartest individuals I have ever met.”
“Hopefully, others involved in this, whose actions were more morally reprehensible than that of Mr. Iza given their comparative age and societal positions, will follow his path sooner than later since truth leads to redemption,” Sadat said.
Brian Gurwitz, the attorney representing Saavedra, offered a short response early Friday.
“Mr. Saavedra recognizes the breach of trust his actions represent and deeply regrets the harm they have caused to the community he dedicated decades to serving,” Gurwitz said. “To respect the Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation, he will not make further public comments at this time.”
Start of a payday
Saavedra said in his plea that he first learned of Iza around August 2021, through fellow deputies who had recently worked security for the crypto mogul at his Bel-Air mansion. That same month, Iza hired Saavedra’s company to provide security services.
The deputy had a lengthy history in the department and in 2018 got a tattoo on his left ankle of the unofficial logo of the Lakewood sheriff’s station, which was a spade with the number 13 inside of it, according to his plea agreement.
Saavedra admitted to recruiting around 20 to 25 deputies and others to accompany Iza 24/7. At times, Saavedra worked the shifts himself.
According to his plea agreement, Saavedra regularly used his LASD credentials to access confidential databases to get information for Iza. Sometimes, he had fellow deputies working for his company do the same.
Saavedra said he and the other deputies gave the crypto mogul personal information relating to several people, including three victims — identified in the agreement as R.C., E.Z. and D.D. — with whom Iza had disputes.
One of the earliest incidents prosecutors described in court filings last year took place during an August 2021 party at Iza’s Bel-Air mansion. Iza wasn’t happy with the party and wanted the party planner — R.C. — to reimburse him for half the cost, prosecutors said.
Last year, prosecutors alleged in an indictment that two of Iza’s bodyguards held R.C. at gunpoint and forced him to transfer back $25,000 he’d been paid for his services.
In this week’s plea agreement, Saavedra admitted he knew the bodyguards — both of whom are deputies — had held someone at gunpoint. One of Iza’s associates claimed R.C. was a major fentanyl and cocaine dealer, leading Saavedra to pass the information along to a narcotics detectives, according to the court filings.
Soon after, the narcotics detective told Saavedra that they had obtained a warrant but did not find any illegal drugs in R.C.’s home, according to Saavedra’s agreement.
Iza also admitted that in October 2022, sheriff’s deputies in his employ illegally detained yet another victim — identified by the initials L.A. According to his plea, Iza held the victim at gunpoint and forced him to transfer $127,000 into a bank account he controlled.
A $100-million laptop
In late 2021, Saavedra said he learned of a dispute between Iza and E.Z. regarding a laptop believed to hold more than $100 million in cryptocurrency. Through court records and interviews, The Times was able to identify E.Z. as Enzo Zelocchi, a self-described “actor, producer and innovator.”
Iza told Saavedra the laptop was stolen and that he wanted it so he could access and convert the cryptocurrency, court filings show. In a previous interview with The Times, Zelocchi said the laptop belonged to him.
Iza later told Saavedra that he thought Zelocchi’s associate, D.D., might have the laptop. In December 2021, Saavedra, Iza and two others — including another deputy — went to D.D.’s Orange County home to confront him, according to Saavedra’s agreement, but D.D. refused to open the door and spoke to them through a window.
Saavedra admitted in his plea agreement that he identified himself as law enforcement, showed his badge and told D.D. that a stolen laptop was pinging in his home. D.D. denied having a stolen laptop and after police arrived, the group departed.
Iza later told Saavedra he’d hired a private investigator and was spending large sums of money to locate Zelocchi and the laptop with no success, according to Saavedra’s agreement. Iza said he was frustrated by the private investigator’s lack of progress, prompting Saavedra to offer a solution: a search warrant for GPS location information associated with Zelocchi’s phone.
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Saavedra admitted that in January 2022, he applied for and obtained a search warrant for several phone numbers, including Zelocchi’s. According to his plea agreement, Saavedra lied in a sworn affidavit, stating that Zelocchi’s number was tied to a suspect in a firearms investigation.
After getting the illegally-obtained warrant, court records show Saavedra began receiving pings for Zelocchi’s phone, identifying the approximate location. Soon after, Saavedra admitted to traveling to an L.A. neighborhood where the phone was pinging and spotting Zelocchi outside a residence in an apartment complex.
According to court filings, Saavedra told Iza that he had found Zelocchi and the two surveilled the apartment complex and residence.
Iza admitted that he gave orders that led three people to try to force open the door of Zelocchi’s residence, but the effort failed when Zelocchi fired in their direction and they fled.
Fake search warrant
In 2022, Iza told Saavedra that one of his business associates — identified in court records as Client 1 — had been involved in stealing large amounts of cryptocurrency, and was interested in hiring private security. According to Saavedra’s plea agreement, Iza told Saavedra he could get the client’s business if Client 1 thought there was something to worry about.
To do that, Iza allegedly suggested scaring Client 1 with a made-up investigation. So Saavedra created a fake search warrant, using the official Sheriff’s Department template to make it look legitimate.
After writing up the false document, which mentioned cryptocurrency and digital services, Saavedra arranged to have another deputy share it with Iza, who showed it to the potential client, court filings say.
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Not long afterward, Client 1 hired Saavedra’s company for security.
Saavedra and his company provided services to Iza from August 2021 until around March 2022, when Iza left for Dubai, according to the plea agreement. When Iza returned to L.A. in July 2024, those services resumed until Iza’s arrest in September.
Iza also admitted in his plea to stealing more than $37 million by fraudulently gaining access to Meta Platforms Inc. business manager accounts and their associated lines of credit from 2020 to 2022.
Both Iza and Saavedra also admitted to federal tax crimes. Iza avoided the assessment of nearly $7 million in federal income tax due for 2021. Saavedra received approximately $373,146 in unreported income and subscribed to a false tax return for 2021.
As part of his plea agreement, Saavedra said he would pay restitution to his victims, and pay his back taxes with interest. He also agreed to forfeit dozens of designer bags and shoes as well as a money counting machine, all of which prosecutors said were either ill-gotten gains or goods used to further criminal activity.
From the steps of the federal courthouse, U.S. Atty. E. Martin Estrada addressed reporters on Friday morning — his last day in office. He referred to Iza as a “massive cyber fraudster” who used deputies as his “enforcers,” and said that he and Saavedra both “profited handsomely from their criminal scheme.”
He thanked Sheriff Robert Luna for cooperating with federal authorities to ensure justice, and hinted at the possibility of more to come, saying the investigation is “very much ongoing.”
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