Metro Lex News

Two Lexington men, Hussein Qasim, 34, and Ibrahim Qasim, 29, were sentenced on Monday by U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell to 57 months and 45 months respectively for their roles in a money laundering conspiracy. Hussein and Ibrahim Qasim were also each ordered to pay $3,274,690 in restitution.

According to their plea agreements, the Qasims’ co-conspirators, who lived outside the United States, targeted luxury car dealerships via email and phone calls by impersonating real employees of other dealerships. The co-conspirators deceived the luxury car dealerships into purchasing expensive vehicles that they did not own and would not deliver. At the co-conspirators’ direction, the luxury car dealership victims sent payments to specific bank accounts opened by the Qasims. The brothers then collected the money and transferred it through a sophisticated web of financial transactions that ended with investments, personal expenditures, and payments to accounts outside the United States—often in cryptocurrency—for the benefit of the co-conspirators.

Between June 2022 and December 2023, the Qasims and other co-conspirators laundered over $6 million from at least seven different luxury car dealerships across the country.

Under federal law, the Qasims must serve 85 percent of their prison sentences. Upon release from prison, they will both be under U.S. Probation Office supervision for three years.

Carlton S. Shier IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Robert Holman, Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Secret Service; jointly announced the sentence.

The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Secret Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Dieruf prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.