SAN DIEGO — Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced a $2.4 million settlement with the perpetrators of an illegal scheme that threatened thousands of companies throughout California with fines or even suspension of their right to conduct business if they failed to return official-looking but fraudulent forms along with a mandatory filing fee.??”These imposters used phony documents that appeared to originate from a government office to gain payment from law-abiding businesses,” Brown said in a recent statement. “This settlement puts a stop to their scheme and secures restitution for the companies that were cheated.”??The civil settlement filed in San Diego Superior Court names Annual Review Board, Inc.; Business Filings Division; Corpfilers.com, LLC; George Alan Miller; Rebecca J. Miller; Argishti Keshishyan and Kristina Keshishyan. The settlement requires the defendants to make restitution of $1,750,000 to customers and pay an additional $650,000 in penalties and costs to the state. To preserve the defendants’ assets, the Attorney General moved successfully last year to freeze their bank accounts.?The bogus operation constitutes what is known as a corporate filing scheme. Solicited victims were told they had to pay a $195 filing fee accompanying return of the phony documents.