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And the numbers are staggering. These aren’t just small-time crooks — they’re organized criminals with a global reach and a ruthless business model.
One of the most explosive cases involves a man named Troy Murray. Using the alias “Steve Dixson,” Murray sold personal data on over seven million elderly Americans to a Jamaican lottery scam ring. These scammers targeted seniors, falsely claiming they’d won fake sweepstakes in order to drain their bank accounts.
But it didn’t stop there. Investigators found Murray’s son, Cutter Murray, was laundering dirty money — to the tune of $1.6 million — in chunks over $10,000 each. Two other men, Dennis Anderson and Frank Angelori, were also named as brokers who helped push consumer lists to Jamaican fraudsters for five straight years.
It gets worse. The Justice Department revealed a massive sweep against romance scams, the kind that trap elderly Americans into thinking they’ve found love — only to be conned out of their money.
A Nigerian national, Charles Uchenna Nwadavid, was arrested at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. He’s accused of taking part in sweetheart scams between 2016 and 2019. Meanwhile, Joseph Kwadwo Badu Boateng, also known as “Dada Joe Remix,” was shipped in from Ghana for allegedly running a romance and inheritance scam stretching from 2013 to 2023.
One of the more outrageous cases involved over $679,000 in stolen Tether cryptocurrency, taken from victims through dating apps like LinkedIn and “Coffee Meets Bagel.” That money vanished into the crypto ether — all part of elaborate fake love stories backed by lies about gold, jewels, and fake taxes.
Seniors are also being tricked into handing over millions through fake tech support scams. One Indian national, Rakeshkumar Patel, pleaded guilty to running a phony operation where scammers posed as government agents, scaring victims into thinking their identities had been stolen.
In Rhode Island, a group of eight individuals was indicted after they used pop-up warnings on computers to lure victims into calling fake support lines. Once on the phone, these scammers convinced elderly callers that their assets were frozen and needed to be “secured” — code for sending their money straight to the fraudsters. Over 300 victims in 37 states were scammed out of $5 million in that one scheme alone.
But it’s not all bad news. Bondi revealed that the Justice Department has recovered and returned over $129 million to elderly fraud victims. That money came from two massive data companies, Epsilon Data Management and KBM Group, which had sold consumer data to scammers under the table.
Thanks to Deferred Prosecution Agreements, those companies were forced to fund a special Claims Administrator tasked with paying back victims across the country.
Victims can also call the National Elder Fraud Hotline at 1-833-FRAUD-11, staffed with experts trained to help seniors in crisis.
This fight isn’t just about foreign fraud. Domestic con artists are also getting swept up. In Northern California, Kenneth Mattson was arrested for a fake real estate scheme that robbed hundreds of retirees of their life savings.
Meanwhile, Jon Kubler, who wasn’t even licensed to give investment advice, allegedly ran a $4 million scam targeting elderly Americans — convincing them to invest in bogus projects.
From foreign romance swindlers to shady data brokers and fake tech support agents, Bondi and the DOJ are on the offensive. The clear message? No one gets a free pass to target America’s seniors — not anymore.
The crackdown marks a major turning point in defending some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens from high-tech, high-dollar predators. Bondi is sounding the alarm — and she’s not backing down.
