By Mark Gutglueck
There has been further fallout in the case involving Eric Chase Saavedra, the Chino man who moonlighted as the “Policeman for the Mob” while he was simultaneously a respected member of Southern California’s law enforcement profession.
Scott Allen Simpkins, 34, of Brea who at one time worked side-by-side with Saaverda as a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and then simultaneously went to work with a private security company owned by Saavedra to carry out investigative, muscle, intimidation, kneecap-busting, surveillance, extortion and other illicit assignments for organized crime figures, garden variety criminals or anyone who would pay for it, was sentenced to one year, six months in prison and fined $10,000 on Monday, July 13 by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson, who also fined him $10,000.
Within the next week, another former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, 45-year-old David Anthony Rodriguez, is to be sentenced for his misdeeds in assisting Saavedra with operation that turned data bases operated by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies into assets for the underworld.
Saavedra, who was then 38 years old, founded a private security company, Saavedra & Associates LLC, registering it with the California Secretary of State on August 26, 2021. Saavedra & Associates remains registered with the State of California as an active business entity. Saavedra & Associates provided private security for its clients, employing active Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies and other law enforcement officers.
Members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, as do other California law enforcement agencies, have access to the Justice Data Interface Controller, known as JDIC, maintained by their department; can obtain access to the Central Name Index, maintained by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department; are able to tap into the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, known by its acronym, CLETS, which is maintained by the California Department of Justice, which incorporates within its bailiwick the California Attorney Generals’ Office; can log into NCIC, the National Crime Information Center data bank maintained by the FBI; and have privileges to utilize NLETS, the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System maintained by a consortium of law enforcement agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories are database and information retrieval systems available to law enforcement agencies that are interlinked and intended to provide information relating to actual or suspected criminal activities, crime reports, incident reports, suspects, arrestees, those convicted of crimes, victims and witnesses. Use of and access to these systems are supposed to be limited to law enforcement agencies and their officers who are engaged in legitimate law enforcement activity and investigations.
On multiple occasions, Saavedra and those he employed at Saavedra & Associates made use of information derived from one or more of the restricted databases in carrying work on behalf of Saavedra & Associates clients.
Ultimately, Saavedra was tripped up as a consequence of work he carried out for Adam Iza, a youthful financial market hacker born in Iraq in 2000 whose original name was Ahmed Faiq. Iza grew up in Beverly Hills, where he developed a reputation as a teenage computer prodigy with advanced hacking skills. By his late teens, he had transitioned from a self-taught hacker to a figure in the cryptocurrency market, amassing wealth of approaching $100 million through the volatile digital asset boom involving trades that were both legitimate and illegitimate.
Using his hacking expertise, Iza targeted victims, many in the area around Los Angeles but elsewhere as well, using a combination of advanced cyber techniques and social engineering to siphon millions from unsuspecting individuals. His operations included testing the envelope with regard to the use of legal processes and involved intimidating rivals and extorting money.
Social engineering involved spoofed emails or other direct communication with a victim that appeared legitimate, leveraging trusted platforms like Google Forms to bypass email filters and add credibility; caller ID spoofing, utilizing tools to display phone numbers associated with Google, reinforcing the illusion of authenticity; creating the illusion of urgency and immediate action, by convincing those victimized that account compromise was imminent or under way and pressuring them into acting hastily and without critical thought.
Iza’s approach extended to having off-duty deputies, hired through Saavedra & Associates under a contract of $100,000 per month, as personal enforcers. Federal investigators subsequently documented how those officers’ actions blurred the distinction between law enforcement and criminal enterprise. In pressuring some of Iza’s victims, Saavedra and his employees left the impression with several that they were acting in the capacity of law enforcement officers, including carrying out searches of private property under the authority of court-issued warrants, and setting up rivals or those who got in Iza’s way for arrest.
Iza’s criminal activity extended to multiple episodes of wire fraud carried out consequent to his operation of a crypto trading business from his Bel Air mansion in which he made both authorized and unauthorized diversions, some of which were disclosed and others which were not. One of those diversions pertained to hacking Meta Platforms’ business accounts with a Kosovo-based partner, yielding $37 million in unreported income from access sales, leading in that case alone to an estimated $6.7 million in unpaid federal taxes.
His activity as an illicit cryptocurrency profiteer put Iza in contact with others plying the same trade. Two of those were James Schwab and Veer Chetal. Through his hacking capability and information available through the circles he ran in, Iza became aware that another young crypto operator, 18-year-old Veer Chetal, in the summer of 2024 impersonated Google and crypto exchange technical support to steal 4,100 Bitcoins – worth $243 million at the time – from a Washington, D.C., resident. Iza, recognizing that Chetal was vulnerable to blackmail because he did not want law enforcement to learn of any of the details about the Bitcoins theft, pressured Chetal to cut him in on a percentage of the $245 million. When Chetal refused, Iza, in league with his brother, Saif Faiq, and Schwab, hired six men from Florida who in August 2024, went to Danbury Connecticut, shadowing Chetal’s father, Morgan Stanley vice president Sushil Chetal, and his mother, Radhika Chetal. As the couple were driving near Danbury High School in their Lamborghini Urus, a white Honda Civic with two of the four Floridians rammed the high-end SUV from behind and a white Ram ProMaster van in which the other four men were traveling blocked their path. The six masked men dragged the couple from the car, beating Sushil with a baseball bat and forcing Radhika face down onto the ground. The six then dragged Radhika by her hair and threw her and her husband into the van.
The kidnapping took place in broad daylight and was witnessed by multiple passersby, including an off-duty FBI agent. The police were called, and after a high-speed chase which ended with the van crashing, all six of the abductors were taken into custody.
All six ultimately pleaded guilty, having revealed under questioning that they were working on behalf of Iza, Faiq and Schwab. Investigators determined that the intent of the operation was to extort from Veer Chetal half of the $243 million Bicoins haul.
In September 2024, Iza was taken into federal custody. In January 2025, he pleaded guilty to federal charges including conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and tax evasion. The case made against Iza took stock of how he had employed deputies to carry out extortion, intimidation, and illegal searches. In June 2026, he also admitted to orchestrating the attempted kidnapping of Sushil and Radhika Chetal.
Initially, Saavedra and the employees of Saavedra & Associates insisted that Iza had hired Saavedra & Associates to provide him and his company, known as Zort and which he ran out of his Bel Air mansion, with around-the-clock security. Initially, federal investigators took those statements from Saavedra and his employees at face value but returned to the issue when further details about Iza’s operation emerged during the course of the investigation.
As early as the fall of 2021, Saavedra began illegally using his Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department status and credentials to access restricted law enforcement databases to obtain personal identifiable information relating to Iza’s victims or individuals with whom Iza had personal or business disputes, their associates and their family members. Under grilling by the FBI, Saavedra admitted he used his position and authority as a sworn law enforcement officer to improperly obtain court-authorized search warrants for the premises of specific individuals at Iza’s request, including a warrant to search an individual’s residence that Saavedra helped facilitate. Saavedra also obtained warrants to provide or simply provided location information relating to individuals Iza was seeking to track or locate. Saavedra and the employees of Saavedra & Associates fully understood, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, that confidential information they obtained through their access to restricted law enforcement data bases was used to locate, intimidate, harass, threaten and extort individuals in accordance with Iza’s activities, according to court documents. They also used Telegram and other encrypted communications apps to avoid law enforcement detection, according to federal prosecutors.
In 2022, Iza, who had determined that one of his victims possessed a laptop computer which contained the codes and full accessing protocols for cryptocurrency valued in excess of $100 million, instructed Saavedra to obtain a search warrant for GPS location data contained in the victim’s cellphone. In January 2022, under false pretenses and using a perjured affidavit, Saavedra applied for and obtained a search warrant from a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. In the affidavit supporting the search warrant application, Saavedra falsely stated that the victim was the target of an illegal firearms investigation. Using the GPS data, Saavedra traced the victim’s movements, thereby ascertaining where the victim was residing and provided that address to Iza. In March 2022, Iza recruited three thugs to the victim’s home to engage in an invasion-type armed robbery to obtain the laptop. That effort went awry, however, when the victim turned out to be armed and discharged his own firearm at the would-be robbers. Afterward, Iza sent the victim a video of the incident in a further effort to intimidate him.
The sworn law enforcement officers employed by Saavedra & Associates involved themselves in other violent acts at Iza’s behest. In August 2021, two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies held a one man at gunpoint inside Iza’s residence, while Iza convinced him to transfer $25,000 from his bank account to his own. In October 2021, with Saavedra & Associates providing back-up, Iza held a victim at gunpoint, prevailing upon him to transfer $127,000 into his account.
Both Iza and Saavedra entered guilty pleas to an array of charges against them, including federal tax crimes. Iza willfully avoided the assessment of approximately $6,772,725 in federal income tax due for the year 2021, he acknowledged in his plea. Saavedra received approximately $373,146 in unreported income and subscribed to a false tax return for 2021, he admitted.
Simpkins was handed his 18 month federal prison sentence on July 13, 2026 by Judge Percy Anderson following his guilty plea entered on March 17, 2026 to one count of obstruction of justice. Simpkins resigned from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s special enforcement bureau after the plea.
According to court documents, Simpkins was a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy assigned to the Lakewood Station, working for the special enforcement bureau and special weapons and tactics team. He also worked about six to eight shifts as a private security guard for Saavedra & Associates. In August 2021, Iza, fellow Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Christopher Michael Cadman, and other officers to provide security at a party at Iza’s Bel Air mansion. At the time, Simpkins knew Iza possessed at least one firearm, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
After the party ended, around 3–4 a.m. on August 15, 2021, Simpkins learned the party planner, “R.C.,” had been kicked out for erratic behavior. The next day, Simpkins escorted R.C. to Iza’s office, where Iza placed live 9mm ammunition on the desk and intimidated him to obtain $25,000 by transferring it from R.C.’s bank account to an Iza-controlled account, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Simpkins later lied to federal investigators, claiming he never witnessed Iza threaten or extort the party planner. This obstruction blocked a federal probe into Iza’s criminal activities, according to prosecutors.
Rodriguez, reliable sources have told the Sentinel, is to be sentenced early next week. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in July 2025 to having falsified a search warrant to get GPS tracking information for a client’s estranged husband. Since his plea, Rodriguez has reportedly been cooperating with federal investigators.
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he was terminated from the department in October 2023.
Federal investigators say that which Rodriguez was working for Saavedra & Associates in July 2022, he was given the assignment of providing personal security for a wealthy woman going through a heavily-contested divorce proceeding. During the course of that assignment, according to federal prosecutors, Rodriguez fell into a personal relationship with the woman. When the woman said she feared for her safety and that her estranged husband had several of her valuables, according to the Department of Justice, Rodriguez obtained a search warrant by making misrepresentations to a federal judge that GPS location information relating to the woman’s husband was needed in conncetion with the sheriff’s department’s investigation into a robbery in Cudahy. Rodriguez made that claim, according to the federal government, despite his knowing that the woman’s estranged husband had nothing to do with the robbery in question. Upon obtaining that GPS data, which placed the estranged husband in Utah, Rodriguez provided the information to Saavedra. According to federal law enforcement agents, other employees of Saavedra & Associates affixed a tracking device on the victim’s car and sent him a threatening text.
Rodriguez told federal investigators, as part of his plea agreement, that Saavedra and other Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies working for Saavedra & Associates unlawfully obtained information which was used to intimidate or threaten certain individuals.
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Michael David Coberg, 44, of Eastvale, who also went to work for Saavedra & Associates, is serving a 63-month federal prison sentence and was ordered to pay $127,000 in restitution for helping Iza extort a rival and arrange the sham illegal drug possession arrest of another adversary in Paramount in 2021.
Iza and Saavedra have yet to be sentenced. Iza faces a theoretical maximum of up to 35 years in federal prison. Saavedra will face up to 13 years in federal prison.
“These alleged actions, as detailed in federal court documents, are deeply disturbing and do not reflect the values of our Department or the dedicated work of the vast majority of our deputies who serve with integrity,” LASD wrote in a statement in July 2025. “The Department has fully cooperated with the ongoing federal investigation.”
According to Special Agent in Charge Tyler Hatcher, IRS Criminal Investigation, Los Angeles Field Office, “Mr. Iza’s and Mr. Saavedra’s relationship was little more than a thuggish partnership between a thief and a crooked cop. The public should be able to trust members of law enforcement, but Mr. Saavedra violated his oath for a payday. Mr. Iza stole from anyone he could and found a big payday by ripping off Meta so that he could afford to pay for Mr. Saavedra’s corrupt protection and assistance. Unfortunately for both of them, money leaves trails and IRS Criminal Investigation is the best in the world at finding and following those trails. When you commit fraud and take a payday from fraudsters you must pay taxes on those funds. Now they will face justice for their actions.”
Assistant United States Attorneys Daniel J. O’Brien and J. Jamari Buxton of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section, and Maxwell K. Coll of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section are prosecuting this case.