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By LANCE MARTIN

rrspin.com

RICHMOND, VA – A Roanoke Rapids man with businesses in Gaston and Emporia, VA will serve time in prison for income tax evasion and conspiracy to deal in stolen goods.

On March 12 in Federal District Court, Theodore Nicholas Papouloglou received 27 months for count one of his indictment and 27 months for count three of his indictment.

The sentences, according to information in the federal court record, will be served concurrently, meaning the separate sentences will be served at the same time.

Following the completion of his sentence he will serve three years of supervised release.

Count one charges him with evasion of income tax assessments and count three charges him with conspiracy to transfer, receive, conceal and sell stolen goods.

The charges are related to catalytic converter thefts.

According to sentencing minutes for last week’s court proceedings, the Roanoke Rapids man appeared before District Judge David J. Novak in Richmond for just over 45 minutes.

Novak rejected a sentencing variance in which the government sought no more than 60 months for Papouloglou.

Novak also ordered Papouloglou to obtain a GED, pay a $100 special assessment, and pay restitution of $465,325 in $200 monthly installments to the government. Interest was waived.

He will get credit for time served and Novak allowed him to serve his time at a federal prison in North Carolina.

Papouloglou had originally been indicted last March on four counts tied to the illicit sales of catalytic converters.

He pleaded to counts one and three in August of last year.

Count one involved proceeds from the illicit sale of catalytic converters amounting to at least $10,429,637 at one of his businesses and at least $4,047,000 at another business.

The gross receipts from the catalytic converter businesses resulted in the generation of at least $568,306 in income.

Count three involves a conspiracy which began as early as 2020 and continued until at least November 2, 2022, where he knowingly and willfully conspired to commit certain offenses against the United States by receiving, possessing, concealing, storing, bartering, selling, and disposing of catalytic converters — of the value of $5,000 or more, which crossed a state boundary after being stolen.

The count also charges that they were transferred to locations in New Jersey and Japan while knowing they were stolen.

The indictment from 2024 says Papouloglou, in November of 2020, incorporated DG Auto South LLC in Emporia, VA as a scrap metal business which routinely purchased and sold automotive parts, including catalytic converters. It also operated as a money transmission business in connection with the purchase and sale of catalytic converters.

In November of 2019, Papouloglou incorporated Strategic Converter & Cores, a limited liability company registered to his mother’s address in Gaston, a company the indictment refers to as an alter ego of the Virginia business.

(Lance Martin is the Editor and Publisher of www.rrspin.com. Permission was received to publish this story.)