A federal judge sentenced Franco Fuentes to 57 months in prison and ordered him to repay more than $270,000 for a bank-imposter scheme that targeted older people. The judgment entered Monday also requires Fuentes to forfeit property tied to the fraud, including $37,000 in cash and a bill-counting machine, federal prosecutors in San Diego said.
Fuentes admitted that he and others called victims while pretending to work for their banks. They falsely warned that an account had been compromised, then persuaded the account holder to surrender a bank card and its personal identification number. The cards gave the group a direct route to cash withdrawals and retail purchases before a victim or bank could stop the activity.
One 80-year-old victim's cards were used for more than $43,000 in transactions, prosecutors said. That total included about $22,000 spent at Apple stores. The amounts show why an impersonation call can turn into a major loss quickly: the crime does not end when the caller hangs up, because possession of both a card and PIN opens several channels for spending.
The sentence converts those admitted facts into three separate obligations. Prison addresses the criminal penalty. Restitution is meant to compensate victims for established losses. Forfeiture takes property connected to the offense. They are related parts of the judgment, but they do not guarantee that every dollar will be collected or returned on the same schedule.
U.S. District Judge Benjamin J. Cheeks imposed the sentence in case 26-cr-404-BJC. Fuentes pleaded guilty to bank fraud under a federal statute that covers schemes used to obtain money or property controlled by a financial institution through false representations. The public release identifies the sentence and the government's account of the conduct; it does not include a response from Fuentes or his attorney.
The FBI and San Diego Police Department investigated through the San Diego Elder Justice Task Force. That structure matters because the calls reached individuals, the cards were used in commerce and the resulting bank transactions created records across more than one institution. A joint team can connect the initial report with surveillance, transaction histories and other evidence that no single victim would possess.
The method also depended on urgency and borrowed authority. A caller claiming to protect an account asks the victim to act before checking the story independently. Banks may contact customers about suspicious activity, but surrendering a physical card and PIN to an unexpected caller removes the controls that normally protect an account. The admitted scheme exploited that gap rather than a technical breach of the bank itself.
Restitution of more than $270,000 sets the financial scale found by the court, not a count of all fraud committed against older San Diegans. The U.S. Attorney's Office described multiple victims and highlighted one person's losses. Without the underlying sentencing filings and victim-by-victim ledger, the public announcement does not establish how the total is divided or how much has already been recovered.
The case ends with a fixed prison term, but collection will continue through the restitution order and forfeiture process. For families and banks, the useful warning is embedded in the mechanics Fuentes admitted: a legitimate fraud alert can be checked by ending the call and contacting the institution through a number printed on the card or published by the bank, before any card or credential changes hands.