A Southwest Ranches man was sentenced to five years in prison after stealing close to $110 million from the Federal Communications Commission’s discounted phone and internet service program in what is considered the largest criminal case ever involving the agency, according to prosecutors.
Issa Asad, 51 and his telecom company, Q Link Wireless, were sentenced in Miami federal court Thursday on charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud, steal government money, and conspiring to defraud the United States. Asad is also charged with money laundering. They have been ordered to jointly pay over $109 million in restitution to the FCC.
The scheme took place over at least 9 years, beginning in 2012 and continuing through at least 2021. It began when Asad and Q Link joined the FCC’s Lifeline program, which offers low-income people heavily discounted cell and internet service through certain telecommunications providers, then reimburses the providers. The program is strictly for people below a certain income threshold who are on government programs like Food Stamps and Medicaid, and requires that providers stop seeking reimbursements for any customers who do not use their phones during a given timeframe.
But Asad and Q Link, which is based in Dania Beach, did not stop seeking reimbursements. Instead, for nearly a decade, the company deceived both customers and the FCC in order to keep receiving money from the government.
Asad directed Q Link employees to “monitor” customer’s cell phone usage, “ostensibly to ensure that it complied with the FCC usage rules,” according to a federal charging document. He and other Q Link employees would then manufacture fake cell phone activity on customer’s phones and successfully “tricked” the FCC into thinking the customers were still using the service.
The company would also give customers false threats, claiming they might lose Medicaid or Food Stamps if they didn’t continue in the program, as well as barrage customers who were not using their cell phones with calls to get them to answer their phones, according to the document. When Asad found out the FCC was investigating the company in 2014, he provided false records to claim that customers were in fact using their phones.
Ultimately, Q Link made about $618 million from the FCC, $109 million of which was fraudulently obtained, according to federal prosecutors. Asad separately made over $1.7 million from laundering money he made by defrauding the government’s COVID loan program.
Altogether, Asad and Q Link were ordered to pay the U.S. government over $128 million in penalties and restitution.
“This was a brazen scheme of staggering proportions,” Executive Special Agent in Charge Kareem Carter of the IRS Criminal Investigation unit said in a statement. “Mr. Asad prioritized his own greed, stealing $100 million from taxpayers.”
Asad and Q-Link pleaded guilty to both counts in October 2024 in exchange for the five-year sentence. His plea is also “the largest criminal plea deal in the history of [the] Southern District of Florida,” prosecutors said.
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