New York Man Sentenced in Arizona to 121 Months for Laundering Elder Fraud Proceeds
Federal prosecutors have secured a 121-month prison term against a New York resident convicted of laundering nearly $1 million taken from elderly victims in a phishing scam network.
Ivan Wilbur Seales, 58, a New York resident and citizen of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, was also ordered to pay approximately $855,000 in restitution, says the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.
Seales retained a share of the stolen funds and laundered the remainder through shell companies, cryptocurrency transfers, cash withdrawals and offshore accounts.
The underlying scheme used fake pop-ups and emails impersonating banks, Apple, Microsoft, Geek Squad, PayPal and an antivirus firm to trick victims into believing they owed or had received erroneous payments.
Victims were instructed to send their own money to the scammers under the false claim that they were returning over-refunded amounts.
“Victims were also lied to and informed that their bank accounts had been hacked or were compromised. At least one victim was told his account was linked to child pornography. To further the scam, the fraudsters directed the victims to transfer their money to various locations to ‘protect’ their accounts or to ‘catch’ the scammers.”
The United States Postal Inspection Service and New York State Police led the investigation into the case, numbered 24-CR-0419-TUC-SHR.
This story was originally published by The Daily Hodl. Read the original article.
