TRENTON, NJ—On Friday, Amro Badran was sentenced to twenty-seven months in prision after pleading guilty to one count of bank fraud.

Badran ran a check-kiting scheme that defrauded to banks out of $ 1.5 million from June 2006 to August 2008. Authorities have stated that he opened fifteen bank accounts at New Millennium Bank and Brunswick Bank & Trust to pull off the scheme, according to a report on NJ.com.

Badran, a tax preparer and part-time real estate developer, engaged in a “check kiting” scheme, which is creating false balances in his bank accounts by causing checks to be written against the accounts with the knowledge that the money is not there.

Badran would write these phony checks then deposit the checks into other accounts to artificaly inflate the balance of the account, according to the Home News Tribune.

He admitted that he took the proceeds of the bad checks to pay for personal and business expenses and to continue inflatating accounts that he controlled. According to the report, Badran had deposited an excess of $25 million in bad checks written against his various bank accounts. 

As we reported in Decemeber, Badran pleaded guilty to the charges. 

Once the bank discovered the fraudulent accounts, they returned the checks with inadequate funds and charged the accounts and causing them to be overdrawn, recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

Badran, in addition to his prison term, was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution.