A multi-state, multi-million dollar investigation dubbed Operation Teller-to-Telegram just concluded with the arrest of several individuals who allegedly engaged in a bank fraud scheme that targeted the elderly.

In a statement, the office of the Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier says that eight individuals behind an $8.8 million bank fraud ring are now facing RICO charges, criminal use of personal information and other serious felonies. 

The fraud operation involved three bank employees in Maryland, identified as Barbara Frazee, Camala Shafer, and Antonio Penn, who allegedly sold and shared the account information of senior customers using the encrypted mobile messaging app Telegram.

The other perpetrators used the victims’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and bank account information to drain savings, then transferred the stolen funds to accounts that they opened.

Says Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd,

“This wasn’t some small-time scam, this was a well-organized fraud ring stealing millions from innocent victims across the country. They thought they could hide behind mobile apps and fake accounts, but we found them, and we’ll continue to go after anyone who targets hardworking people’s life savings. Racketeering is a serious crime, and we will pursue as many felonies as possible against each one of these suspects.”

Frazee, Shafer and Penn are now facing charges along with their alleged co-conspirators: Okeroghene Akushe, Michael Nevarez, Roshado Durrant, Hassan Phillips and Kevin Clayton.

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A fraudster who drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from an elderly victim’s account is now staring at the possibility of spending decades behind bars.

Cuban national Michel Duarte Suarez has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft after stealing about $803,000 from his victim’s bank account over a four-month period.

Court documents show that Suarez told a confidential informant in March 2022 that he had access to the account of an 82-year-old victim.

While living in Panama at the time, the scammer wrote and sent checks to South Florida with instructions to his co-conspirators to encash the checks and wire 50% of the funds to Suarez’s Miami-based firm, Online Electronics. Authorities say that Suarez forged the checks to resemble the signature of the victim displayed on their signature card for the same bank account.

Suarez was arrested in January 2025 in Panama and was extradited to South Florida to face the charges. For his crimes, he could spend 30 years behind bars plus a mandatory consecutive two-year sentence to any imprisonment term handed down by a judge.

The fraudster is slated for sentencing on September 29th, 2025, in Miami before United States District Court Judge Kathleen M. Williams.

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A 42-year-old man who is accused of running a $30 million scam targeting elderly Americans has reportedly just been arrested in Canada.

Gareth West was arrested in Quebec on behalf of American authorities and is now facing extradition to the United States to face fraud charges, reports CBC/Radio-Canada.

West is alleged to have posed as a wealthy real estate developer while running a complex “grandparent scam network” that employed more than 20 people and included multiple call centers in the Montreal area.

He faces charges in the US of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

West is alleged to have been the mastermind behind grandparent scammers since at least 2021. The scammers would allegedly phone older Americans, pretend they were their grandchildren who had been arrested or hurt, and say they needed cash right away. Scammers would connect the elderly victims to fake lawyers or bail agents and arrange for cash pickups.

Some 23 of West’s alleged scammer employees were arrested in March.

Police allege that documents they’ve recovered from the suspected scammers show they scammed $30 million during a span of about 67 weeks.

West faces up to 40 years in prison if extradited to the US and convicted of the crimes.

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An elderly JPMorgan Chase customer is out thousands of dollars after scammers convinced him he won a big prize.

An 87-year-old man from Portland, Oregon, lost a total of $13,000 to scammers who told him he needed to pay them money to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars and a new SUV, reports the NBC-affiliated KGW8.

The victim, whose name was not provided, says he received a call one morning from a man claiming he won a Publishers Clearing House prize.

“[He said] that I won second prize. Second prize is $850,000 and $150,000 in cash. And additionally, I was going to [get] a Mercedes SUV.”

However, the victim says he was told he had to meet someone at his bank and hand over money to receive it. He says he followed the instructions and was met by a thief who walked with him into a Chase Bank branch in Northwest Portland.

“I said, how much money do you need? He said $10,000. I said, what’s that for? He said, well, we need people to insure the car, give it license plates, install the plates. It sounded reasonable at the time.”

The scam didn’t stop there. He says the thief got him to come back later that day and withdraw another $1,500, as well as go to CVS to buy three $500 gift cards.

However, he says that when his wife, Iris, came home and he told her about the situation, she realized he had been scammed. She says the bank teller should have figured out her husband may have been a victim of fraud before letting him withdraw the funds.

Says Iris,

“When I got home he said, ‘I have good news for you. We won Publishers Clearing House. We’re going to get a big check.’ After that, I had a meltdown. None of this would have happened if the teller had called a manager. None of this would have happened, and it’s not like he looks like a young man. There was a man, like, shadowing him.”

A Chase Bank spokesperson says the firm is looking into the matter. The Portland Police are also investigating.

Says the victim,

“I used to be a very bright guy, and I feel very stupid now having bought this.”

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Two California men face up to 30 years in jail for allegedly operating a scheme that fraudulently accessed the bank accounts of elderly victims and stole their funds.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California, a 17-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday charges brothers-in-law Ayman Alaaraj and Ahmad Nassar with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Court documents show that in May 2023, Nassar took over several bank accounts belonging to two elderly victims at two separate banks using sophisticated techniques, such as porting over the phone number belonging to one of the victims.

The method enabled Nassar to access the accounts and bypass the banks’ two-factor authentication protection. Nassar, occasionally assisted by Alaaraj, then drained the accounts and ran up unpaid credit card debits, causing more than $794,000 in losses to the victims.

The two men then moved the stolen money through the pass-through accounts created under the victim’s names, as well as funneled $100,000 through Alaaraj’s businesses.

The defendants eventually transferred the money to themselves using ATM cash withdrawals, personal checks, Western Union transactions and Zelle transactions. They also used the stolen funds to pay credit cards, engage in online gambling and buy a Mercedes.

If found guilty, the two men face up to 30 years of jail time and a $1 million fine for each count of bank fraud. They also face a mandatory prison term of two years and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the gross gain or gross loss, for the aggravated identity theft count.

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