The owner and operator of a California trucking company pleaded guilty to more than a dozen federal charges related to credit card fraud, identity theft and money laundering.
On October 15, 2026, Hasan Korkmaz, 45, of Las Vegas, pleaded guilty in federal court to 18 charges by indictment, including 12 counts of bank fraud, two counts of money laundering, and four counts of aggravated identity theft.
Korkmaz owned San Diego Logistics Group Inc. located in Santee, California.
As part of his plea, Korkmaz admitted to orchestrating a credit card “bust-out” scheme between 2022 and 2023. A “bust out” scheme involves opening a credit card in the name of another individual and maxing out the credit limit with no intention of paying off the balance.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, Korkmaz obtained names, dates of birth, social security numbers and other information from real individuals and used the information to open multiple credit cards.
The fraudulent credit cards were used at various businesses, including Korkmaz’s San Diego Logistics Group Inc., with charges in the thousands of dollars.
“To perpetuate the scheme, Korkmaz admitted that he also made fraudulent payments, with checks drawn on accounts with insufficient funds or drawn on non-existent accounts, to the credit card accounts, thereby temporarily restoring the available credit limits. Korkmaz would then incur additional charges on the credit card accounts at or near the maximum credit limits for the accounts. In total, Korkmaz caused over $2,103,000 in losses to two banks,” officials said.
Korkmaz further admitted to laundering money internationally to a bank account in Türkiye controlled by Korkmaz.
“As set forth in public filings, immediately after pulling off the sophisticated $2 million dollar credit card fraud scheme using stolen identities—targeting two banks and almost 100 individual victims—and laundering that money to bank accounts in Türkiye, Korkmaz absconded. There, in Türkiye, Korkmaz spent the next 18 months before ultimately returning to the United States, where he was arrested in June of 2025,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Korkmaz is scheduled to appear at a sentencing hearing on January 8, 2027.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
