CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Maple Heights man, sitting in an Ohio prison, ran an international drug ring with the help of a noted Italian con man, authorities say.
Brian Lumbus Jr., who is serving 10 years in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, used Giancarlo Miserotti to import drugs from Italy, China, India and Mexico, according to the indictment unsealed Tuesday in federal court in Cleveland.
Investigators linked the group’s drugs to one death, the indictment said.
“We are all committed to stopping the flow into our country of these illegal and toxic poisons that endanger our families, our friends, and our neighbors,” U.S. Attorney Becky Lutzko said at a news conference. “Today’s announcement is a step toward making the United States and this district safer.”
Italian authorities considered Miserotti a “master of forgery” and once likened him to Frank Abagnale Jr., the American con man whose rampant fraud inspired the Steven Spielberg movie “Catch Me if You Can.” Miserotti was arrested last week in Italy and is awaiting extradition to Cleveland, officials said.
Lumbus, 44, is serving his prison sentence for stealing about $1 million in scheme he orchestrated in 2013. He’s being housed in the Lucasville facility, a maximum-security prison.
It’s the second time this year federal prosecutors charged someone with running a largescale ring from an Ohio prison. In April, prosecutors charged Charles Daniels, 45, who is accused of peddling drugs from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.
Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson said the investigation into Lumbus stemmed from Lumbus’ time at the same prison. The probe, launched by prison authorities, ended up spanning three continents.
Wilson said he has started a new unit that will focus solely on investigating organized drug trafficking in Ohio’s prisons.
“While we often make the mistake of believing (that) when someone goes to prison, they’ve hit rock bottom and are serious about rehabilitation,” Wilson said. “That may be true for some of the incarcerated population, but many of our prisoners are career criminals. That’s what they know. That’s what they do. And that’s what they will always try to do.”
Lumbus, Miserotti and nine others were charged in Tuesday’s indictment with conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute drugs, international money laundering and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. One of those charged is Lumbus’ son. One is his brother, and two are his sisters, officials said.
Seven of the 11 have been arrested. Arraignments for Lumbus and Miserotti have not yet been set, and attorneys for the two are not listed in court records.
The crew operated from April 2016 to November 2023, according to the indictment. Drug Enforcement Administration Special-Agent-in-Charge Orville Greene said investigators are unsure how they met.
Miserotti shipped more than 200 pounds of fentanyl, Xylazine, a drug that’s similar but 10 times more powerful than morphine, synthetic marijuana, known as K-2 or Spice, and a variant of bath salts to the group, among other drugs, Greene said.
Miserotti had drugs from China shipped to him in Italy to avoid Customs, according to the indictment.
At Lumbus’ direction, his crew paid Miserotti to arrange for drugs to be sent to group members in Pittsburgh, Lorain, Toledo and Cleveland. Miserotti was paid via bitcoin and Moneygram. The group paid him at least $65,000, though Lutzko said the number included in the indictment is a fraction of what he was paid.
Some of the drugs went to dealers in Cleveland, Kentucky and Tennessee, the indictment said. Paper sprayed with a synthetic marijuana was sent to Lumbus in prison, according to court records.
A Tennessee man, Brian Morrison, 45, died from using the group’s drugs, according to the indictment and news reports.
A person charged in Tuesday’s indictment, Wanda Ward, also faces second-degree murder charges in Tennessee in connection with Morrison’s death and is accused dumping Morrison’s body in a park.
In a recorded call, Lumbus told Miserotti that they needed to “be careful for a second” after Morrison’s death. The two discussed details about the death, and Miserotti concluded that “the ratio of the pink [Metonitazene, a powerful morphine-like drug] was thick,” according to court records.
Italian National Police Brig. Gen. Lorenzo Bucossi said during the news conference that Miserotti hasn’t worked a legitimate job in nearly a quarter century and was known in Italy as someone with “great aptitude as a forger.” Italian police arrested him and five others last week and are searching for two more suspects in a forgery case.
Authorities said that when they arrested Miserotti, they seized 300,000 euros, 80,000 counterfeit Swiss francs and equipment money-forging equipment. Miserotti is also facing charges in Italian courts.
He previously served a four-and-a-half year prison sentence in Italy for counterfeiting euros, credit cards in 2008 and 2009, according to Italian news accounts.
Before he was sentenced, Miserotti gave a TV interview about how easy it was to forge euros before hiding from authorities in Ukraine with an exotic dancer, according to media reports. Miserotti twice slipped past Italian authorities before he was arrested near the Ukraine-Poland border in 2012, where he planned to sell fake passes to the European Football Championships.
Lumbus’ prison sentence stems from a conviction for leading a group of 11 others in a widespread scheme that targeted several people, including a Bay Village woman who lost $43,000.
Lumbus stole about $1 million by using stolen identities to cash $500,000 in stolen checks and buy $500,000 in merchandise by opening store credit cards in other people’s names.
In 2019, he was sentenced to 18 months in state prison for illegally conveying drugs into Lake Erie Correctional, a private prison in Ashtabula County, and six months for bringing drugs into the Warren Correctional Institution in Lebanon, Ohio.
He was set to be released from prison in March.
Adam Ferrise covers federal courts at cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. You can find his work here.
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