LOS ANGELES — A Vancouver man was sentenced to nine years in prison Monday for running a lottery scam in the United States that defrauded dozens of elderly victims of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Henry Anekwu, 43, was convicted in April of 10 counts of mail fraud and six counts of wire fraud, all of which were centered around a telemarketing operation that told victims they had won a lottery, but needed to pay taxes or other fees up front to claim their winnings. Individual victims paid as much as $60,000 into the scheme, which operated for about five years until 2003. Many of the 79 victims in the scam lost their homes as a result.
Anekwu, who was arrested in 2005 by the RCMP, based his operations out of two Canadian companies he ran — Platinum Award, Inc. and Capital Award, Inc. — and hired telemarketers to contact victims.
In December 2009, he was extradited to the United States after losing an appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada.
In addition to his prison term, Anekwu was also ordered to pay restitution to his victims, totaling more than $510,000.
Many of the elderly victims lost their homes and this guy gets 9 YEARS ?
Some of these judges need their @sses put in jail.
I say hand this joker over to the families of all 79 victims and let them serve justice on his butt. It's only right. He gets busted in 2005 and extradited in 2009 and sentenced in 2010? Why so long with the appeals? He should not have had any appeals and should have been brought before his victims right after his butt was busted!! Most of these people probably lost their homes while he was getting his appeals. How many of the victims are still alive? How many of the victims are actually going to get thier money back from this cess pool reject?
This guy is so low even the buzzards wouldn't want his sorry carcass. I hope he rots in prison.
In addition to his prison term, Anekwu was also ordered to pay restitution to his victims, totaling more than $510,000.
Usually in fraud cases like these, the victims never get their money back or they get pennies on the dollar. The only good thing is that Anekwu can expect to be sued many times over.
He sounds to be a lovely, ethical man! Ultimately, I wonder if the U.S.A. income tax payers OR the Canadians get the wonderful opportunity to pay for housing, recreation, and meals for this greedy and malicious man over his nine year jailed sentence period? The U.S.A. should probably bring back working jails (structured so that the prisoners never receive money for their daily labors though!) -- each prisoner must earn their keep; diligently working 8 hour days in profitable to their countrymen pursuits.
I read, above, that one of our members projected that this man will be sued a lot by the victimized seniors or their families. However, I doubt that, since this man probably doesn't have any money remaining to even pay back these families' hired lawyers.
Again, it's important for adults (younger and older) to know that lottery's are connected to governments enough to withdraw INITIAL taxes THEMSELVES before cutting a check to a winner (as an employer is able to deduct fed, state, etc. taxes FIRST before issuing a check to their employees)!
I say hang this dude or give him the Elect. Chair
I'm not sure what to do within the law except sue his ass off. These people should have known better. My God, they worked all their lives and earned money the hard way. Why do they keep falling for this crap? This punishment is too light and the restitution too small. Punishments need to fit the crime. This was more an act of malicious mayhem with all the damage it caused and deserves life in hard labor.
I agree jeffrey. He destroyed so many lives he deserves to have his destroyed.
I USED to BE A MEMBER OF A SCAMBUSTERS WEBSITE, a long time ago. basicallyu would shoot the breeze with other like minded people and post articles about why such n such a scheme was a scam. used sam spade to trace where scams where hosted somewtimes even find names and adresses where they registered domain names.
tell people thaT THE ONLINE CASINO THEY THINK IS SO COOL IS REGISTERED AND RAN FROM A VIRGIN ISLANDS, and if they can trust someplace ran there with their own money well and good, but dont ask for mine.
ahhh they where good ole days. i was younger, niever and thought i could actually do some good.
now i just try n win lotto.
I didn't know why there's a lottery scam?
Because he is smart by stealing from poor. Those who steal from rich get 100+ years.
Individual victims paid up to $60,000 and many lost there homes.
Doesn't sound like they were poor.
What could you steal from the poor besides a spot to sleep under the bridge?
Amazingly enough, there's a story that explains just that at the very beginning of this thread.
If someone is rich a one-time $60,000 payment won't take his home away. Sorry I live i LA maybe we have a different well-being criteria here...