$100M+ Marijuana Bank Fraud Case Can Proceed, Judge Rules

A federal judge denied an attempt to dismiss a criminal case involving an alleged scheme to deceive banks into approving cannabis sales by credit and debit card.
The Monday ruling from Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court, New York’s Southern District, comes in a case alleging businessmen Ruben Weigand and Hamid Akhavan set up fake businesses, websites and bank accounts in order to “fool the banks into approving marijuana credit card and debit card sales by disguising those transactions as sales of dog food and the like,” the ruling states. (
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