Court documents unsealed in New Haven lay out allegations that Richard Murray and several others operated the scheme beginning as early as 2018. Investigators say victims were contacted by phone and told they had won a Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. However, authorities allege that before collecting any supposed prize money, the winners first had to send in fees and taxes.
I told him I am happy to give him some money if he needs money but I don't know what he's talking about. My dad is on the naive end of the spectrum of adults but he is very, very, very kind-hearted and generous. If ever there was a time when I needed money, my dad would send me basically the entire contents of his bank account without hesitation.
The phone rings at 2:47 AM. Your heart pounds as you fumble for the receiver. "Grandma?" The voice is shaky, desperate. "I'm in trouble. I got arrested. Please don't tell Mom and Dad." The voice sounds just like your grandson. He uses the nickname only family knows. He remembers that trip you took together last summer. Everything about this call feels real because, in many ways, it is.
The tech giant said it's detected and disrupted about 8 million accounts engaging in scam operations during the first half of 2025, including those associated with scam centers in areas like Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines. It also took action on over 21,000 Facebook Pages and accounts that were pretending to be customer support operations that were attempting to trick people into sharing their information.
Together, they obtained homeowners' reverse mortgage funds under the pretense of financing home repairs but ultimately diverted the money. Bohn held a mortgage loan originator license from 2012 to 2018 and pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud. He entered a plea agreement in January 2024, and his state license was revoked in July of that year. According to court documents, Bohn's sentence announced Wednesday was shorter than the 28 months requested by federal prosecutors.
"Criminals had taken out nine different accounts using my name and my Social Security number," Rosenberg said. "They had set up all sorts of drug cartels... throughout the country and perhaps abroad... 'Have you noticed anybody trying to follow you?' And so he's already really got me really scared," she said.
Evidence collected during sting operations planned and carried out by YouTubers helped dismantle a massive Chinese organized crime group that allegedly scammed $65 million from more than 2,000 mostly senior victims across the United States, federal prosecutors in San Diego announced Wednesday. Not all heroes wear capes, San Diego-area U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said. Some have YouTube channels. RELATED: South Bay DA pushes for jail time in organized retail theft case that stretched across region Over the past week, federal agents in California, New York, Michigan and Texas arrested 25 of the 28 individuals indicted by a grand jury for allegedly participating in the fraud scheme.
