12 Days of Scams Day 7: Scammers International

We may think that fraudulent scams mostly originate in American “boiler rooms,” as they are called. Instead, they are growing on the international scene. Many of the operations are thought to be funded by drug cartels.

The federal government has bigger and bigger problems to deal with these criminals operating in other countries.

Recently, two defendants operating from call centers in Costa Rica were convicted in federal court of posing as representatives of the Federal Trade Commission and Securities & Exchange Commission to defraud older Americans out of millions of dollars. The defendants told victims they had won substantial sweepstakes prizes but had to make up-front payments to collect them. The scam defrauded victims out of $10 million in total. The two defendants were sentenced to 25 and 20 years in prison respectively.

The Department of Justice has extradited four Peruvian residents to the United States, where they face charges of operating a large-scale extortion scheme from 2012 to 2015. The defendants are alleged to have run Peruvian call centers that contacted Spanish-speaking individuals living in the U.S. to threaten them into paying fraudulent settlements or nonexistent debts.

These prosecutions, discussed at https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USFTC/bulletins/246ccf0, illustrate just how much money there is in fraudulent schemes, whether they originate in China or India or elsewhere.

Unfortunately most international telephone fraudsters like these never get caught or prosecuted. Most victims of these kinds of scams never get their money back. Since prevention is our best hope, sharing warnings about such scams with your friends and family might be a truly valuable holiday gift.