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Jamaica making new efforts to curb lottery scamsNews Story
Jamaican officials said Thursday that they are hopeful new legislation will finally result in a stream of convictions and lengthy sentences for fraudsters behind a multimillion-dollar lottery scam that has swindled mostly elderly Americans out of their retirement savings for years. National Security Minister Peter Bunting told reporters that the law reform act will result in a vastly accelerated number of successful prosecutions of swindlers who have made the island a center for cross-border
Mar 15, 2013, 10:48 am - Lottery News

Baltimore man, 81, loses his home after falling for lottery scamNews Story
The first caller told Norman Breidenbaugh he had won $2.5 million in a foreign sweepstakes, but there was a catch: Breidenbaugh needed to send $2,000 in fees before collecting his earnings. Other calls followed, promising Breidenbaugh millions more even a Mercedes Benz as long as he would wire some money to pay taxes on the prizes. He obliged, sending more than $400,000 over about six years, hoping the promised winnings would cover his wife's medical expenses. The prizes never came. The pe
Mar 7, 2013, 9:01 am - Lottery News

Elderly woman tells lottery scam artist to get a job and quit bothering herNews Story
Scam artists have been targeting a small community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and police are warning residents to be aware. The phone scams are concerning, especially for older people, and also nearly impossible to prosecute. Most of the time the person on the other line, is not in this country. In the past week, two people have gone to the Manor Township Police saying that someone tried to scam them over the phone. One person was told their son was in an accident and they needed to send
Jan 22, 2013, 10:00 am - Lottery News

8 lottery scam suspects arrested in JamaicaNews Story
Eight people accused of defrauding U.S. citizens through a multinational lottery scam were arrested during raids of several homes on a single street in Jamaica's capital, police announced Thursday. A police statement said officers detained six males and two females during the Wednesday night operation in Havendale, a middle-class community at the foot of the mountains that tower above Kingston. They also seized nearly $150,000 in cash, jewelry, eight flat-screen television sets and five cars,
May 21, 2012, 10:42 am - Lottery News

Jamaican lottery scams spread despite US crackdownNews Story
The 88-year-old retired Coast Guard officer hadn't been outside the U.S. in decades. Yet phone calls started pouring in from Jamaica, dangling the prospects of huge winnings from an international lottery that he had won. There was a catch, of course. He had to send a check to pay the tax on his winnings. He wired the money to Jamaica. Soon he was ensnared in a scam that may cost him his home in an assisted living facility outside Seattle. It's been heartbreaking, said Ruth Wilson, a Seatt
Apr 19, 2012, 11:43 pm - Lottery News

Con artists target N.J. seniors in lottery scamNews Story
The first call came in December. How are you? How's your day? We have a wonderful thing to tell you, a 65-year-old Ocean County woman said of her first telephone conversation with the Jamaican-sounding strangers. They said I had won an award, the woman said. (The prizes) ranged from $1.5 million to over $5.5 million. The callers told her she had to send them money to purchase stamps so that her prize could be delivered. She sent the money, but then she got more phone calls with vario
Nov 7, 2010, 9:55 am - Lottery News

Elderly woman loses $300K to Jamaican lottery scamNews Story
People ripped off by one scam could be targeted for dozens more. A database of easy targets is now being used by con-artists. Stuart Childers said a stack of documents he showed WFTV Wednesday is paper trial of the hundreds of wire transfers his 75-year-old mother sent to scam artists. She put it to us she wanted to leave a legacy, do something good for the family, Childer said. Childers said his mother fell victim to a Jamaican lottery scam and gave the thieves close to $300,000 in a
Oct 7, 2010, 11:00 am - Lottery News

Stringing along Jamaican lottery scammersNews Story
It's a little suspicious when the address linked to a call notifying someone they won the Maryland Lottery is in Michigan. Or Ohio. And Richard Drexel, who has worked in security for part of his career, is no fool. As soon as the call came in for his son, also Richard, the elder Drexel called the Maryland Lottery. No, in fact, they don't call you to notify you you've won they have other means. And they certainly don't ask you to pony up $150 to pay for fees and taxes before you can collect
Dec 14, 2009, 8:45 am - Lottery News

Joint task force created to stop Jamaica lottery scamsNews Story
The feds are cracking down on Jamaican lottery scams, which bilked Americans out of more than $30 million last year, authorities said Tuesday. The brazen con artists are transforming the tropical getaway into a fraudsters paradise pulling in untraceable cash to finance the drug and gun trades with impunity, officials said. It's just an incredible amount of money that's coming down here, said Vance Callender, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement attache at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston.
May 27, 2009, 3:25 pm - Lottery News

D.C. lottery ticket wins $144M Powerball jackpotNews Story
One lottery ticket sold in Washington, D.C. matched all 6 numbers in the Wednesday evening Powerball drawing, and is now worth $144 million to the lucky ticket-holder. The holder of the winning ticket will now have to decide whether to take the 29-year, 30-installment annuity, or the one time cash lump sum amount of $79,681,116. There were a total of 903,448 additional winning tickets in America's Game Wednesday evening. Those tickets won prizes totaling $8,450,412. The numbers drawn We
Apr 9, 2009, 9:03 am - Lottery News