Final Defendant in $100 Million Dietary Supplement Fraud and Money Laundering Scheme Sentenced to 36 Months in Prison
On March 4, 2026, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah announced the sentencing of the final defendant in what the Justice Department calls a $100 million dietary supplement fraud and money laundering scheme: Phillip Gannuscia, 55, of Salt Lake City, Utah, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge David Barlow to 36 months' imprisonment, followed by 24 months of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit his Porsche 911 convertible, which was traceable to the scheme.
Gannuscia had pleaded guilty on April 9, 2025, to conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to court documents and statements at his plea and sentencing hearings, from around December 2018 through April 2022 he and others used the personal information of family and friends to create fake companies and open credit card processing accounts for them, through which consumers paid for nutraceutical and dietary products. Because the sales were driven by misleading and deceptive advertising, the accounts were frequently shut down over high numbers of refunds and chargebacks, so the group kept setting up new shell companies, processing the payments and laundering the proceeds. He admitted to laundering money on numerous occasions, each involving more than $10,000 of fraud proceeds, with total gains attributable to him of more than $1.5 million.
At the time, Gannuscia was already subject to a court order permanently enjoining him from credit card laundering and from making or assisting others in making false statements to obtain credit card processing services. He admitted setting up the operations to shield himself from public view and accountability, and directing others to forge and paste signatures on documents for the fake companies.
The case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation and the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigations, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brent L. Andrus and Luisa Gough of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah.
Related: Texas Man Sentenced to 90 Months for $59.9 Million Medicare Fraud
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于美国华盛顿的美国国税局总部大楼宪法大道入口立面（资料照片），本案由国税局刑事调查局参与调查。Carol M. Highsmith 摄，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons；联邦固定图库。 / Photo: The Constitution Avenue entrance of the Internal Revenue Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. (file photo); IRS Criminal Investigation took part in the case. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; federal fixed image library.
