Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Influencer Stole $8 Million Dollars - The Jay Mazini story

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Jay Mazini, whose real name is Jebara Igbara, was a New Jersey-based Instagram influencer known for posting videos of cash giveaways and portraying himself as a wealthy, devout Muslim businessman. However, behind this facade, he orchestrated multiple fraudulent schemes that defrauded investors out of at least $8 million.Not very halal bro

Man, this hot honey chicken and waffle sandwich from Racetrack is stacked with flavor. Hey, boss. Looks like the build's coming together. Yeah. Crispy chicken, egg, cheese, and a drizzle of hot honey on two golden waffles. It works all right. No, I was talking about the job. Oh, right. Breakfast stacked with flavor.

The new hot honey chicken and waffle breakfast sandwich. Only here for a limited time. Racetrack. Whatever gets you going. Available through May 5th that participating in locations serve 6 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. It's the Paradise Podcast. I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bathay, with my husband Sterling. What's up?

Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fulglement, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julian Nicholson, and Sterling Calby Brown. Who! Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Kulu and Kulu on Disney Plus.

You know those influencers who film themselves handing out money to random strangers on the street? Well, you might be surprised to learn that some of them are scammers, including this guy. His name's Jay. And Jay is 23 during this time, living in New Jersey, and he's one of those influencers who got big by filming himself handing out money to strangers. And he has built himself up a nice following doing that, getting nearly a million followers on Instagram. But one day in 2019, he starts screwing it all up.

Because bro gets greedy and he starts thinking, I'm going to start conning my fans. Now, stealing from his fans is actually pretty easy for him. I mean, they trust him. Because not only does he come across as a guy who's already very wealthy and successful at business, but more importantly, on social media, he really presents himself as a very spiritual guy, a devout Muslim who would never rip anyone off.

I mean, look at these videos he makes of himself looking all religious. I'm praying right where the profit used to pray. That's the greatest healing ever. It's worth more than a million dollars. Apparently not. Because at some point Jay starts an investment company called Halal Capital LLC. And he calls it halal because with this he's going to target mostly his Muslim American following. So he tells his followers to invest with him because he's doing it the halal way. And that he's going to in turn invest their money.

into stocks, electronics, PPE equipment, stuff like that, he also starts teaching his own online courses where he teaches people how to get rich quick. For the first thousand people to sign up, they'll be mentored by me personally. Yeah, huge red flag. Now, investment companies are nothing new, but here's the problem with Jay's investment company. He doesn't really seem to be investing it or putting it towards stocks at all. Instead, he takes their money and just pockets it and puts it into his own personal bank account. And of course, he spends a lot of it on himself. Like, he's got to make himself look rich and successful to flex to his followers on Instagram. He also apparently uses it to fund those viral giveaways where he films himself giving away money to random strangers. And so

a lot of these people are being handed what is basically stolen money. Regardless, these giveaways are becoming really popular. In fact, by 2020, they've become so popular. They've become so popular that like 50 cent appears in one of his videos. And there you can see Jay handing workers money through the drive-thru, and here you can see 50 cent rolling up. He also gets the rapper Fabulous to appear in a video. Y'all my brother Fabulous right here. What's up, y'all? And that's all great for Jay that his videos are doing well. But eventually, some of those people who invested with his investment company, they come asking for their money. And Jay doesn't have it. So he's starts taking money from new investors to pay off the old investors. And this is where he gets into

a Ponzi scheme. And this Ponzi scheme actually works for a while. But pretty quickly, Jay runs up his tab so high that it just isn't enough anymore. So he comes up with yet another, even douchier plan to con more money from his followers. One day he gets on social media and he offers to buy out his followers Bitcoin from them in exchange for cash. And here you can see he's holding up a sign explaining exactly what he's trying to do. And he claims he's going to buy it from them for more than what it's worth. So they would be making money by selling it to him. And if you're like, Ray, that doesn't make any sense. I agree, but it's a scam and scams are built on lies. They don't have to make sense. Anyway, a lot of people give him their Bitcoin expecting cash in return. But

when it comes time to pay them the cash, Jay will say that he wire transfer the money and he'll even send screenshots of a confirmation that he did. But unfortunately, the confirmations end up being fake. I guess he like photoshopps them or something. Anyway, regardless, this works for Jay and it works really well. Because at this point, the dude has scammed his followers and other members of the Muslim community out of $8 million.

Eight million dollars. But the crazy thing is, people love him so much because he's constantly making videos of himself handing out cash to strangers, so most people don't suspect a guy like Jay would ever do something shady like this. Until. Here's the thing.

You can only not pay people back for so long before they start to get pissed off. And eventually, rumors start to swirl online that Jay is just another internet fraudster who's out ripping people off. And around this time, people finally start reporting him to the FBI. And so, boom, the feds and the IRS start investigating and looking into him. Oh, but it gets so much worse.

Because around 2021, an Instagram troll account appears out of nowhere called Jay Mazzini scam. And this account posts and bashes Jay every single day, calls out a ton of his scams and makes him look really bad. And Jay, he thinks this guy started the account. Umjud. And Umjad is 29. He's a former associate of Jay's and he apparently didn't start this account, but Jay thinks he did. And so Jay hits him up one night and he's just like, hey, uh, do you want to meet up for coffee and talk about all this? And Umjud's like, all right. And so they meet up near Jay's apartment and they're sitting in Jay's car talking and suddenly boom, two masked goons get in the back seat.

and Jay starts driving. Like, they're trying to kidnap Umjud over an Instagram troll account. So at some point, the car slows down enough to make a right turn. And Umjad's like, yeah, fuck all this. And bam, he jumps out of the car and he starts running. And Jay and the goons, they get out and they start chasing him. Then Umjid sees an alleyway and he runs down it. But like, oh damn, it's a dead end.

And so he sees a staircase up the side of a building. And so he runs straight up it. But again, he's at another dead end. end because he's now standing on a balcony. But the two goons are still closing in on him, and so he jumps down, two stories. And kaboon, he hits the ground and he sprains his ankle. So he can't run anymore. And of course, the goons catch up to him and they beat the shit out of him, and they force him into the back of the car, and they speed away. Then they drive him somewhere, and they put him in some basement, and they strip all of his clothes off of him, so now,

he's completely naked and one of the goons has a machete and he's like threatening umjud with it and they're like telling him to access the Instagram page and delete it and naked umjad is like I don't have access to the account it's not my account anyway they beat him up some more and they don't get anything out of him so eventually they let him go and of course he goes right to the police and reports what happened and two days later bam police arrest j here's his mugshot and so now he's charged with the kidnapping and the assault, but while he's there in jail,

they go ahead and they charge him for all those other scams he was pulling. But then, in a weird twist, Jay's wife, because I guess Jay is married, she offers Umjad $200,000 to change his story and tell police that Jay didn't actually kidnap him. And the craziest part is Umjad, he says, aye, and he takes the bribe,

and he agrees to change his story about the kidnapping. And so then, bam, police arrest Jay's wife for offering a bribe, and they arrest Umjad for taking the bribe. Here's his mugshot, and here's Jay's wife's mugshot. And I couldn't actually find any more information on their convictions. However, Jay actually does get convicted, and he takes a plea deal, and he gets seven years in prison. That is... Jackson Hewitt will do your taxes for $149 or less, no matter how complicated. So if you're a delivery driver...

Man. Ow. Slash wedding DJ? You pay only 149 or less. We're talking to you, waitress. Check please. Slash pet sitter. Slash influencer.

Just 149 or less. Want your refund to work as hard as you? Hurry. Don't wait. File with Jackson Hewitt today. Limited time offer for new clients on federal returns. Participating locations only. Terms at jacksonhewitt.com slash 149.

It's crazy.