A Jamaican in the US faces fraud and money laundering charges after allegedly participating in a sweepstakes scam that defrauded elderly victims of millions of dollars.
On Thursday, October 19, 2023, Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said that a group of jurors in New Haven have accused a person named Howard Chambers, who is 32 years old and from Jamaica but lives in Waterbury, of committing fraud and money laundering. The charges are related to a scam that targeted older people all over the country and resulted in them losing millions of dollars.
The grand jury returned the indictment on October 17, 2023, and the authorities arrested Chambers two days later, on Thursday morning, October 19, 2023.
The suspect appeared before a US Magistrate and pleaded not guilty. He was released on a US$150,000 bond into home detention, with electronic monitoring, pending trial.
The facts per indictment stated that, since at least 2018, Chambers and others used a sweepstakes scheme to induce primarily elderly victims to provide them with money.
As part of this scheme, scammers notified unsuspecting victims, typically by telephone, that they won a Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. Then, they told the victims that they must pay fees and taxes to collect their winnings.
Once victims agreed to pay the fees and taxes, Chambers and others allegedly mailed them fake documents, including a “winning notification” letter from Publishers Clearing House and a letter from the Internal Revenue Service requesting tax payment on their winnings.
Deceived victims sent cash, money orders, or cheques through the mail to various addresses in Connecticut, including an address in East Hartford and throughout the US.
The indictment also alleges that Chambers and others moved money received from victims through various accounts in different companies’ names, including a limited liability company registered in Connecticut with Chambers as its managing member and agent.
The allegation stated that conspirators sometimes used victims as intermediaries to receive money from other victims and then moved that money to members of the fraud scheme.
The indictment accuses Chambers of several crimes including fraud and money laundering. If convicted, Chambers could face up to 20 years in prison for each offense.