Two male defendants, including one from Hollywood, were sentenced on Dec. 6 for stealing nearly $4 million in cash and luxury vehicles in an automobile sublease scam.

Arman Mave Hazarian, 48, also known as Dean Hazarian, of Tarzana, was sentenced to nine years in state prison, and Afshin Hashemi, 48, also known as Al Hashemi, of Hollywood, was sentenced to four years in county jail.

In October, Hazarian and Hashemi pleaded no contest to three felony counts of grand theft of an automobile and one felony count of grand theft. Hazarian admitted to stealing more than $500,000 through fraud and embezzlement, and taking property valued at more than $3.2 million, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

From August 2017 to February 2019, Hazarian and Hashemi used online ads to convince investors to lease or purchase luxury vehicles and turn them over to them, prosecutors said. The defendants were supposed to sublease the vehicles at a profit and return the money to investors. Instead, the men sold the automobiles to unsuspecting buyers and kept the cash, leaving the victims financially responsible for the vehicles, according to court testimony.

Some of the victims provided multiple cars to the defendants, resulting in individual losses of up to $750,000. The defendants also defrauded the people to whom they subleased the vehicles, never signing over ownership titles after receiving money.

The scheme involved the loss of more than 40 vehicles manufactured by Bentley, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Lexus. Some of the cars were never recovered, said Deputy District Attorney Alex Karkanen, of the district attorney’s office’s Automobile Insurance Fraud Division.

The case was investigated by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol. Hazarian and Hashemi were arrested on March 14.