A man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for taking part in a $4.8 million canola fraud scheme, according to the district attorney.<\/p>\n
49-year-old Shawn Sawa formerly of Clovis, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his involvement in a fraud scheme that stole $4.8 million worth of canola from international food processors.<\/p>\n
Court documents revealed that between 2015 and 2017, Sawa and co-defendant Richard Best orchestrated the theft through Best’s now-defunct company, Richard Best Transfer Inc. <\/p>\n
The company, which specialized in transloading commodities, received canola from food processors for delivery to customers.<\/p>\n
Sawa, who was the Fresno area manager for one of the victim processors, initially received kickbacks from Best to increase canola supply to Richard Best Transfer.<\/p>\n
The stolen canola was sold through a Texas acquaintance, with proceeds distributed according to Best’s instructions.<\/p>\n
Sawa used a bank account in his spouse’s name to conceal the scheme. <\/p>\n
Fraudulent inventory reports were sent to victim processors, falsely indicating stock levels.<\/p>\n
Proceeds from the scheme funded luxury homes, vehicles, trips, and private karate lessons. <\/p>\n
Best, fearing discovery, gave Sawa an old cellphone number to avoid detection by Sawa’s employer.<\/p>\n
The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation.<\/p>\n
Best pleaded guilty on Oct. 14, 2025, and faces sentencing on March 2, 2026, with a potential 20-year prison term and $250,000 fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for taking part in a $4.8 million canola fraud…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-86877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}