Tag: scams

Retiree loses $1m in timeshare fraud by Mexican drug cartel known for cannibalism

Two California retirees say they lost nearly $1 million after falling victim to a bizarre timeshare scam run by a notorious Mexican drug cartel that is known for horrifying claims of cannibalism.

The rapidly evolving scam, run by the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), is estimated to have fleeced hundreds of millions of dollars from Americans each year, including James, 76, and his wife Nicki, 72, who were looking to sell their Lake Tahoe timeshare.

James, who bought the property in the mid-90s for about $9,000 but only stayed there twice, jumped at the opportunity when he received a call from a real estate agent named Michael in October 2022 who offered to buy the timeshare.

“He was good at ingratiating himself,” James told DailyMail.com. “He had an air of confidence. I thought ‘This guy’s legit.’”

The scam is run by the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG). REUTERS

The agent, who James only realized later had a slight Spanish accent, claimed to have found a Mexican investor willing to pay upwards of $22,000 for the property.

The cartel, known for drug trafficking, gruesomely slaughtering their enemies in public and forcing recruits to be trained in cannibalism at “terror schools,” has netted hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade preying on elderly American timeshare owners in similar schemes.

Days after their initial call, Michael called back to say would require $2,600 to cover the cross-border transaction, which he assured James would be reimbursed.

James, who did not share his last name with the Daily Mail, admitted his wife had concerns about the deal from the beginning, but he was reassured when Michael said the buyer would send the cash to US Commercial Escrow Corps, a company with a registered address in Manhattan.

The cartel has reportedly stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from elderly Americans with timeshares. AP

James even spoke with a representative of the company, who he said spoke with an American accent.

He was then hit with a second fee, costing $3,600.

“I felt alright,” James said. “I thought ‘I’m getting reimbursed for this, all will be well.’”

Eventually, the fees racked up to $50,000, at which point James was contacted by a man who claimed to be with the UIF, Mexico’s financial intelligence unit. The man claimed James had committed several violations and would be extradited if he did not pay even heftier fines.

All the while, James said the money always appeared in the New York escrow account, though no funds were ever released.

James and his wife lost nearly $1 million dollars from the scam.

He was then convinced by the fraudsters to invest $32,000 in a sustainable housing investment in Mexico, eventually making a dozen payments for a variety of reasons.

James says he made his last payment in January, spending a stunning $890,000 across several bank accounts in Mexico.

To fund the payments he had to borrow $150,000 from his daughter and sell his childhood home.

James soon uncovered some worrying details, including that the website for the Atlanta real estate agency Michael claimed to be part of had been taken down days after their first phone call.

He also found that the email address he had for a contact at the Bank of Mexico was registered in Arizona, and unexplainably, Reykjavik, Iceland.

Timeshare owners desperate to offload them are particularly vulnerable to the scam.

“None of them had any addresses or locations in Mexico,” James said.

The office for the US Commercial Escrow Corps also did not exist, the outlet reported.

James then contacted Mike Finn, a lawyer who has represented thousands of people facing similar scams.

According to Finn, timeshare owners are especially vulnerable when it comes to these scams because many are desperate to offload them, so when an offer comes in “their excitement blinds them to the details.”

Once the money has been sent to Mexico, it’s more difficult to recover, and the FBI can only investigate with cooperation from local authorities. American lawyers are also unable to file civil suits beyond their jurisdiction, Finn explained.

American timeshare owners have been scammed out of $288 million over the last five years, including from frauds run by the Jalisco New Generation.

The “elaborate” scam cost James his life savings — and left his wife infuriated with him.

“It was very elaborate,” he said. “That’s why I was sucked in. I just thought there were too many players involved for it to be a scam.”

He added: “My wife said from the start that it didn’t sound right. Obviously, I should have listened to her. She’s p—– about the whole thing. But she’s kind of resigned herself to the fact that I was the stupid one.”

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Peaches Stergo admits to stealing $2.8 million from Holocaust survivor

A heartless Florida woman admitted to scamming an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor she met on a dating site out of a jaw-dropping $2.8 million, federal prosecutors announced.

Peaches Stergo’s years-long fraud cost the elderly victim his life savings while she lived a life of luxury that included a house in a gated community, a Corvette, lavish vacations and designer items, including Rolex watches, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a Friday news release.

In total, the victim signed off on 62 checks totaling almost $3 million that went right into Stergo’s coffers and he ultimately lost his apartment from the romance scam.

Starting in early 2017 — after the 36-year-old woman met the man on a dating site — she asked the victim to borrow money to pay her lawyer who she said refused to fork over funds from an injury settlement, according to the feds.

She claimed the funds were put into a TD Bank account, but evidence indicates she never received a cent from a supposed injury settlement.

Over the next four-and-a-half years, Stergo’s web of lies steadily continued, draining the Holocaust survivor of his final pennies.

She demanded the victim deposit money into her bank accounts because she claimed if not, they would be frozen and he would never get any of the money back that he loaned her, the US Attorney’s Office said.


United States Attorney Damian Williams slammed the fraudster in a statement.
justice.gov

He continued loading money into two accounts belonging to Stergo, who at one point even created a fake email account and fake invoices that were supposed to look like it came from a TD Bank employee, the feds said.

Stergo pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison. She was also ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution and forfeit the same amount, including the more than 100 luxury items she bought including designer clothes, purses and lots of jewelry. 

“Peaches Stergo stole the life savings from an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who was just looking for companionship.  This conduct is sick – and sad,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “… Thanks to the hard work of the FBI and this Office, Stergo is being held accountable for her fraud.”

Stergo also bought a boat and other cars on top of the house and Corvette she purchased. Some of the fancy items she scooped included from companies like Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton and Hermes. 

She’ll be sentenced July 27. 

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Timothy Gritman impersonated dead dad amid pension ripoff

He was “dad” on arrival.

A Pennsylvania man was so intent on stealing his dead dad’s pension and Social Security payments that he even used make-up to “whiten his hair and eyebrows” to impersonate his elderly father to skeptical authorities.

The grifter, Timothy Gritman, 55, stole $204,985 in NY state pension and Social Security funds paid out to his dad, Ralph, from October 2017 to October 2022, State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said.

Ralph Gritman, 79, of Freeport, LI, retired from the Nassau County Clerk’s Office in 1992 and moved with his wife, Naomi, to a retirement community in Pennsylvania approximately three years later, DiNapoli said.

After Naomi died in 2010, Ralph was unable to keep up with his home and moved in with his son in 2014, the comptroller’s office said.

Father and son pulled up stakes and moved to Wyoming in Aug. 2017, DiNapoli said.

The elder Gritman went to a hospital emergency room in Wyoming a month later, Medicare records showed. That was the last time his Medicare benefits were ever used, the comptroller said.

The father was “in poor health in 2016 when he was last seen alive by relatives” at his son’s Pennsylvania residence, authorities said.

In 2019, Timothy Gritman told a family member that his father had died several years earlier, but would not say where he was buried or what had happened to his body, DiNapoli said.

A call to DiNapoli’s fraud hotline sparked a joint investigation that included the FBI and Pennsylvania authorities and led to the suspension of Ralph Gritman’s pension payments, the comptroller said. But his shady son continued to claim his father was alive and requested the pension payments be resumed.

When DiNapoli’s office asked to speak with Ralph Gritman, his son would either claim the older man was asleep or would try to imitate his dad’s voice, authorities alleged.

So the comptroller’s office asked for photographic evidence of his father holding a current ID card.

The scheming son then sent investigators a picture of himself, in which he tried to disguise himself as his dad by “appearing to use make-up to whiten his hair and eyebrows” and, holding a “bogus” Pennsylvania State identification card, DiNapoli and FBI officials said.

Timothy Gritman was arrested on Feb. 14 and pleaded guilty in US District Court, Philadelphia, to wire fraud and Social Security fraud, according to the state comptroller’s office. He faces a maximum of 285 years in prison, a three-year period of supervised release, and $3.7 million in fines at sentencing on May 31.

Ralph Gritman’s body has still not been found. He is believed to have died of natural causes, authorities said.


Timothy Gritman tried to impersonate his dead dad by “appearing to use make-up to whiten his hair and eyebrows and holding a “bogus,” according to authorities.

The seedy swindle got off the ground because father and son shared a joint bank account where the elder Gritman’s retirement benefits were electronically deposited, DiNapoli noted.

“To date, R.G.’s body has not been located and defendant Gritman has refused to admit to family members or law enforcement where R.G. is buried,” reads the scammer’s guilty plea memorandum.

“Needless to say, defrauding the government is a criminally bad idea and the FBI and our partners will continue to pursue anyone bold enough, and foolish enough, to do so,” said Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division.

“My office will continue to hold anyone who seeks to defraud the pension system accountable no matter who or where they are,” DiNapoli said.

Timothy did not return a message seeking comment.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Florida’s ‘Mother Teresa’ accused of Ponzi scheme

A South Florida woman known as “Mother Theresa” in her community has been accused of running her business as a lucrative Ponzi scheme that scammed close to $200 million.

Johanna M. Garcia, of North Lauderdale, allegedly defrauded over 15,400 investors of up to $196 million through her company, MJ Capital Funding LLC, NPR reported Tuesday.

Founded in 2020, MJ Capital pledged to connect investors with small businesses through “merchant cash advance,” or MCA. 

Described as a “hardworking woman that has her priorities in line” in her company bio, Garcia boasted of being a down-to-earth businesswoman who helped regular people generate wealth– she was even “referred to as ‘Mother Theresa’ [sic] in her community.”

The ruse started to fall apart in April 2021, when a website emerged accusing MJ Capital of running a Ponzi scheme.

Garcia sued the anonymous whistleblower for defamation and continued to collect money from investors through Aug. 2021, when the Securities & Exchange Commission filed a formal complaint against the company.

In the document dated Aug. 9, the SEC alleges that MJ Capital used investors’ cash to fund “outside annualized ‘returns’ of 120%-180%,” while company higher-ups squirreled away investments for personal excursions and luxury goods.

In addition to using new injections of money to satisfy existing investors, the SEC claims that MJ Capital used unlicensed brokers and sales agents to sell unregistered securities.

A federal judge responded to the filing by freezing Garcia’s corporate assets and ordering them into receivership.  

While Garcia awaits further investigation, the case against MJ Capital got new fodder last Tuesday, when the SEC filed a second complaint against Pavel Ruiz, a company board member. 

The SEC argues that Ruiz, 29, played a “significant role in perpetuating the Ponzi scheme.”

Armed with a team of around 70 sales agents, Ruiz allegedly defrauded over 5,100 investors of at least $46 million, $7.7 million of which he diverted into his personal accounts.

According to the SEC, Ruiz used some of the pocketed money to purchase a luxury car and crypto assets.  

The same day as the SEC complaint was released, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida charged Ruiz with conspiring to commit wire fraud.

It is unclear if Garcia, who was not named in the federal case, will face similar charges as well.

If convicted, Ruiz faces up to 20 years in prison. 

As of last week, both Garcia and Ruiz had reached partial settlements with the SEC, delaying monetary penalties until the conclusion of any criminal proceedings.

Ruiz is currently free on $250,000 bond.

The MJ Capital scandal is merely the latest in a disturbing string of similar cases, some of which saw investors scammed out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In March this year, the Post reported on the crackdown on a $300 million Ponzi scheme that ended with FBI gunfire in Las Vegas. Just last month, the SEC filed a complaint against 11 people for their roles in an elaborate crypto pyramid scheme that targeted retail investors.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version