Second of two South Florida men in moving company scam sentenced to federal prison

Two South Florida men who were charged in a moving scam that took thousands of dollars from people and household belongings that victims largely never got back have been sentenced to federal prison.

Arvaham Zano, 36, of Hollywood, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison, federal prosecutors announced in a news release Wednesday. His co-defendant Sofein Mlayah, 28, of North Miami Beach, was sentenced in June to 30 months.

Zano has been ordered to forfeit over $330,000 and pay over $2.8 million in restitution with Mlayah, according to prosecutors. Zano will be on supervised release for three years after serving his sentence.

For nearly two years, Zano subcontracted jobs for his Hollywood-based moving company through brokers and traveled throughout the country with Mlayah, one of Zano’s drivers, to people’s homes, many times arriving on dates they weren’t scheduled for and sometimes late at night. Neither men were authorized by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which enforces regulations of interstate moving carriers, according to the indictment.

Zano and Mlayah loaded their victims’ belongings into a truck, and once they had them, demanded as much as two or three times more in some cases than what they were originally quoted by the moving broker, court records said. Some of the victims agreed to pay a significantly higher price than their initial estimate but lower than what Zano claimed the price would be.

“Zano and Mlayah often argued with the victims and coerced them into paying more for their moves, and on other occasions, Zano and Mlayah would not start loading the trucks until they received the higher fees; loaded the trucks but never delivered the items; or charged the victims bogus storage fees,” prosecutors said. “Most of the victims’ household items have never been recovered.”

Victims were required to pay at least half of the total cost once their belongings were loaded into the truck, agreeing to pay the rest once their items were delivered, the indictment said. When victims confronted the men after their things weren’t delivered, Zano and Mlayah made excuses about the weather or other reasons for the delay, according to text messages including in the indictment.

Mlayah pleaded guilty in March to one count of wire fraud, one count of interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of failure to give up possession of household goods, court records show. Zano pleaded guilty to the same counts in May.

Mlayah is held at a low-security facility in Pennsylvania. His current release date is in late June 2025, Federal Bureau of Prisons records show.