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A Florida man who became the self-proclaimed “Wolf of Airbnb” while defrauding Manhattan landlords and taking advantage of eviction protections during the COVID-19 pandemic was sentenced this week to his next booking: four years in prison.
The 32-year-old Konrad Bicher received his sentence on Monday after pleading guilty to a charge of wire fraud last year. He was also ordered to fork over nearly $4 million in restitution and damages.
Bicher stole over $1.1 million through a scheme that included renting 18 apartments in New York City and subletting them on Airbnb while not paying the landlords. He avoided being evicted thanks to pandemic-era protections for renters.
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Prosecutors also said he stole over $565,000 from the government’s pandemic relief program and also failed to pay landlords more than $1 million in rent.
“Bicher enriched himself by abusing Government programs and tenant protections intended to benefit people and businesses in need during one of the worst economic and public health crises in history,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “He bragged about his schemes to his friends and the media, proudly referring to himself as the ‘Wolf of Airbnb,’ but as today’s sentence underscores, those who partake in such callous and fraudulent conduct will answer for their crimes, no matter their self-given title.”
The scheme actually began before the pandemic, prosecutors said, with Bicher beginning to rent apartments in Manhattan starting in February 2019.
The leases prohibited Bicher from subletting to third parties on a short-term basis.
He continued renting the apartments out on short-term platforms until the scheme came to an end in April 2022.
“During the course of the scheme, Bicher referred to himself as the ‘Wolf of Airbnb’ and explained to media outlets that this nickname referred to the fact that he was ‘hungry and ruthless enough to get on top of the financial ladder,’” prosecutors wrote. The nickname was a reference to notorious Wall Street trader Jordan Belford, whose story became a hit 2013 film by Martin Scorsese.
