A trucking company pleads guilty to a credit card bust out fraud.
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| credit: Igor Passchier |
A California trucking company owner is facing federal prison after admitting he built a $2.1 million fraud machine out of other people's identities. On October 15, 2026, Hasan Korkmaz, 45, of Las Vegas, pleaded guilty in federal court to all 18 counts of an indictment charging him with bank fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft.
Korkmaz owned and operated San Diego Logistics Group Inc., a trucking company based in Santee, California. Prosecutors say he used it as both cover and cash register for a credit card fraud operation that ran through 2022 and 2023. Here is how the scheme worked, and what it teaches the rest of us about protecting our own identities.
What Is a Credit Card "Bust-Out" Scheme?
A bust out scheme is one of the oldest tricks in financial fraud, and one of the most damaging. The fraudster opens credit card accounts that look completely legitimate, sometimes even making small on-time payments to build up the credit line. Then comes the "bust out": the cards are maxed out all at once, with no intention of ever paying the balance.
According to the Department of Justice, Korkmaz's version started with identity theft. He obtained names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and other personal information belonging to real people. Using those stolen identities, he applied for numerous credit card accounts in their names.
Once the cards were open, he ran up charges in the thousands of dollars each, including single transactions as high as $18,500, at various businesses, including his own San Diego Logistics Group. Charging his own company was a key move: it funneled the banks' money directly into a business he controlled.
The Bad-Check Trick That Kept It Going
What made this scheme run for two years was a second layer of fraud. To keep the cards alive, Korkmaz made payments on the accounts using checks drawn on accounts with insufficient funds, or drawn on accounts that did not exist at all.
These phantom payments temporarily restored the cards' available credit limits, because banks typically credit a payment before the check actually clears. Korkmaz would then immediately max the cards out again before the bad checks bounced. Each cycle extracted more of the banks' money, and each bounced check was just the cost of doing criminal business.
In total, prosecutors say Korkmaz caused more than $2,103,000 in losses to two banks. He also admitted to laundering the proceeds internationally, transferring funds to a bank account in Türkiye that he controlled.
The 18 Counts He Admitted
Korkmaz pleaded guilty to 12 counts of bank fraud, two counts of money laundering, and four counts of aggravated identity theft. The aggravated identity theft charges are particularly serious: each carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence that must run consecutively to any other sentence, meaning they stack on top of the bank fraud punishment rather than running at the same time.
His trucking company, which federal records show specialized in hauling refrigerated meat and fresh produce with three tractors and five drivers, now has an inactive federal motor carrier registration. The business that served as the scheme's front is effectively finished.
How to Tell If Your Identity Is Being Used in a Bust-Out
The most unsettling part of this case is that the victims were real people whose information was used to open cards they never knew existed. Bust-out schemes depend on victims not noticing. Here is how to catch it early:
Check your credit reports regularly. You are entitled to free weekly reports from all three bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com. Look for accounts you did not open, inquiries from lenders you never contacted, and addresses you never lived at. Any of these can signal someone is building a bust-out in your name.
Freeze your credit. A freeze is free, takes minutes, and blocks new accounts from being opened in your name. You can temporarily lift it when you legitimately apply for credit. There is almost no reason not to have one in place.
Watch for small strange activity. Fraudsters sometimes test stolen identities with small transactions before the big bust-out. A charge you do not recognize, even a tiny one, deserves a call to the card issuer.
Guard your Social Security number. Korkmaz needed real SSNs paired with real names and birth dates. Shred sensitive mail, be skeptical of anyone who asks for your SSN outside of clearly legitimate contexts, and assume any data breach involving your SSN means you should be monitoring your credit closely.
Red Flags for Business Owners
This case also carries a warning for merchants. A customer repeatedly running large charges through your own business, especially round-number or near-limit transactions, followed by payments that later bounce, is a classic fraud prevention red flag. Payment processors and banks watch for this pattern, and it was part of what brought Korkmaz down.
If you run a business, reconcile your merchant account activity against actual goods and services delivered, and treat repeated large card-not-present or keyed-in transactions from the same source with extra scrutiny.
The Bottom Line
Hasan Korkmaz turned stolen identities into a $2.1 million pipeline, and the banks, and ultimately their customers, paid for it. His guilty plea on all 18 counts shows how seriously federal prosecutors treat bust-out schemes, which combine identity theft, bank fraud, and money laundering into a single operation.
For the rest of us, the defense is unglamorous but effective: freeze your credit, read your credit reports, and treat your Social Security number like the master key that it is. The victims in this case did nothing wrong. They just did not know someone else was spending in their name until the FBI came calling.
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