A Ghanaian man named Isaac Oduro Boateng, known as Abu Trica, was extradited to the United States this week to face charges he ran a grandparent scam that took millions from elderly Americans. This is what that call sounds like from the other end of the line.
Chokwe Antar Lumumba pleaded guilty on July 6 to taking $50,000 from undercover FBI agents posing as hotel developers. The money came in five neat checks labeled as campaign contributions. That label was the machine.
A Romanian woman was arrested in Békés County on suspicion of collecting cash and gold from elderly Hungarians who believed their sons were in jail. She was the last link in a chain that started with a phone call and ended at a stranger's front door.
Bob Hunter ran a Springfield retirement shop called The Summit Group of Missouri. For years, his clients got statements showing their money was right where it should be. On June 11, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. The statements were the crime.
Troy Murray operated under the name Steve Dixon and ran a database of seven million elderly Americans, selling their names by the hundred to lottery scammers in Jamaica. On May 28, a federal judge gave him 121 months.
Samuel Ugberaese was extradited from Nigeria and arrested by the FBI this month on charges tied to a romance scam network that operated from 2014 to 2018. The indictment is the record. The widow at the kitchen table is the cost.