ASAP Relocations: Six Company Names, Eight Charged, Five Never Found

In March 2013, a Santa Clara County grand jury charged eight individuals connected to ASAP Relocations Inc in San Jose, California for a household goods fraud scheme spanning 2005 to 2012. The operation ran under six company names: ASAP Relocation, America's Best Movers, Champion Movers, Fast Moving Van Lines, Quick Quotes for Moving, and Encore Movers.

Six names. One operation. Seven years of fraud. When the indictment finally came, five of eight defendants fled the country and have never been found.

The ASAP case is one of the few successful state-level criminal prosecutions of household goods fraud in the United States. It was brought by a county district attorney, not the federal government. It resulted in real consequences for two defendants. And it produced five DOT OIG fugitives who remain at large as of September 2026.

The fraud documented in the ASAP indictment is identical to what Trunk tracks across dozens of active companies today.

Artificially low estimates designed to win the customer. Customers rushed through incomplete paperwork on moving day. Phony fees that doubled or tripled the original price after belongings were loaded onto the truck. Cash demands. Threats of storage charges for consumers who refused to pay the inflated amount.

Roni Hayon, the owner and CEO, and his co-conspirators diverted cash payments and failed to report income to tax authorities. The cash-only demand served two purposes: it made it harder for consumers to dispute charges through their banks, and it enabled tax evasion.

The six company names allowed the operation to cycle through brands as complaint histories accumulated. A consumer who searched for reviews of 'ASAP Relocation' would not find complaints filed against 'Fast Moving Van Lines' or 'Quick Quotes for Moving.' Each name presented a clean slate to prospective customers while the same people ran the same fraud from the same location.

Roni Hayon: owner and CEO of ASAP Relocations Inc. DOT OIG fugitive. Described as 6 feet 4 inches, 220 pounds, last known in San Jose, California.

Adii Therese Karter: Hayon's wife. DOT OIG fugitive.

Noam Israeli: foreman and office manager. DOT OIG fugitive.

Ido Or: foreman and office manager. DOT OIG fugitive.

Elazar Nisanov: foreman. DOT OIG fugitive.

Adalinda Reyna-Mendoza: dispatch and customer service manager. Pled guilty in August 2014. Sentenced to 6 months incarceration and over $200,000 in restitution.

Moaz Kadesh: foreman and office manager. Sentenced in August 2015 to 5 years probation and $160,000 in restitution.

The sentencing disparity between the two convicted defendants is notable. Reyna-Mendoza, who managed dispatch and customer service, received jail time and the larger restitution order. Kadesh, a foreman and office manager, received probation. Both sentences are modest relative to the scale of a seven-year fraud operation affecting an unknown number of victims across six company names.

Five of eight defendants fled and remain on the DOT OIG Most Wanted Fugitives list as of September 2026. Hayon, Karter, Israeli, Or, and Nisanov have been wanted for over 13 years.

The DOT OIG maintains their profiles with photographs at oig.dot.gov/wanted-fugitives. Anyone with information about their location is asked to contact DOT OIG at 1-800-424-9071 or local police.

The ASAP case illustrates a recurring pattern in moving fraud prosecution: the principals who orchestrate and profit from the fraud flee, while lower-level employees who stayed behind face consequences. The owner, his wife, and three operational managers disappeared. The dispatcher and one foreman were convicted. The people who built and profited most from the operation were never held accountable.

The ASAP case was not the only moving fraud prosecution in Santa Clara County. The jurisdiction appears to have been the most active in California for criminal enforcement of household goods fraud.

Edan Elbaz, a separate fugitive on the DOT OIG Most Wanted list, was charged in Santa Clara County in 2011 with conspiracy and grand theft related to moving fraud. He remains a fugitive.

The Avitan brothers, Oren and Yehuda, were also charged in Santa Clara County in 2011 for MTF Relocation. Both remain DOT OIG fugitives.

Three separate moving fraud prosecutions in one county over a two-year period suggest either a concentrated fraud problem in the San Jose area or, more likely, a district attorney's office that was willing to pursue these cases when most jurisdictions were not. The ASAP, Elbaz, and Avitan cases all resulted in indictments. All produced fugitives who fled and were never found.

Santa Clara County proved that state-level prosecution of moving fraud is possible. The fugitive outcomes suggest the limitations of that approach when defendants have the means and motivation to leave the country.

One detail from the ASAP case connects the 2005 fraud epidemic to the present day in a way that no enforcement statistic can.

A consumer who was defrauded by ASAP Relocations in the mid-2000s reported the fraud, assisted the investigation, and watched five defendants flee and two go to prison. She did everything the system asks consumers to do: file a complaint, cooperate with prosecutors, testify. The enforcement worked. The company was shut down. Two people were convicted.

Twenty years later, that same consumer was defrauded again by a different set of operators, Coastal Moving Services, LoadRans, and KF Moving, using the identical playbook. Low estimate. Price inflation after loading. Hostage load. Cash demands.

She is now fighting the same fight through the same regulatory channels. Filing complaints. Documenting the fraud. Pushing for enforcement. The system she helped make work in 2013 is less responsive than it was two decades ago.

The enforcement worked when it happened. Two convicted defendants faced consequences. Five fugitives cannot defraud American consumers. But the prosecution did not prevent the next generation of operators from using the same methods on the same people. The scheme survived the prosecution because the regulatory system that is supposed to prevent fraud, FMCSA's licensing and oversight apparatus, never adapted to stop it.

ASAP Relocation. America's Best Movers. Champion Movers. Fast Moving Van Lines. Quick Quotes for Moving. Encore Movers.

Six company names for one fraud operation. This is the chameleon carrier pattern that Trunk maps across the current industry. Multiple names, one set of people, one set of trucks, one set of methods. The names exist to fragment complaint histories and present clean profiles to consumers who are doing their research.

The ASAP case proved in court that this practice is part of a criminal scheme. The indictment documented the use of multiple names as an element of the conspiracy. Twenty years later, FMCSA's registration system still allows a single operation to hold authority under multiple names with no automated cross-referencing of principals, addresses, or complaint patterns.

Trunk's fraud network mapping connects companies by shared principals, shared addresses, shared phone numbers, and shared complaint patterns. This is the cross-referencing that FMCSA's system does not perform. The ASAP case demonstrates why it matters: six names shielded a seven-year fraud operation from consumers who were trying to do their due diligence.

The ASAP Relocations prosecution proves three things that remain true in 2026.

Criminal enforcement works when prosecutors pursue it. Five operators who fled cannot defraud American consumers from abroad. Two who were caught faced real consequences: incarceration, probation, restitution. The prosecution shut down a seven-year fraud operation that the regulatory system had failed to stop.

State-level prosecution is viable. This case was brought by a Santa Clara County grand jury, not a federal agency. County prosecutors with the will to pursue moving fraud can produce indictments and convictions. The barrier is not legal authority. It is prosecutorial attention and resources.

Enforcement does not prevent recurrence. The same consumer was defrauded twice, twenty years apart, by different companies using the same methods. Criminal prosecution of ASAP Relocations did not change the industry. It removed one set of operators. The system that allowed them to operate, FMCSA's low-barrier licensing, absence of integrity vetting, fragmented complaint data, and minimal enforcement, remained intact and continued to produce the same outcomes.

The ASAP case is a success story and a failure story at the same time. It succeeded in holding some people accountable. It failed to change anything about the system that made the fraud possible.

If you recognize Roni Hayon, Adii Therese Karter, Noam Israeli, Ido Or, Elazar Nisanov, Edan Elbaz, Oren Avitan, or Yehuda Avitan, or have information about their location, contact:

DOT Office of Inspector General: 1-800-424-9071 Or your local police department.

Full fugitive profiles with photographs: oig.dot.gov/wanted-fugitives

If you have been the victim of moving fraud, file a complaint at nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov or call 1-888-368-7238. You can also report to your state attorney general and submit your story to Trunk at trunk.lorea.ai/submit-story.