{"id":27634,"date":"2019-11-15T11:34:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T16:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=27634"},"modified":"2019-11-15T11:34:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T16:34:53","slug":"6-las-vegas-residents-charged-in-mail-fraud-that-netted-10m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2019\/11\/15\/6-las-vegas-residents-charged-in-mail-fraud-that-netted-10m\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Las Vegas residents charged in mail fraud that netted $10M"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six Charged In Multi-Million Dollar Elder Fraud Scheme<\/h1>\n
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LAS VEGAS, Nev.\u00a0\u2013 DOJ 11\/14\/19 – Six Las Vegas, Nevada area residents were charged with running a fraudulent mass-mailing scheme that tricked hundreds of thousands of consumers into paying more than $10\u00a0million in fees for falsely promised cash prizes, the Department of Justice has announced.<\/p>\n

The unsealed indictment charges Mario Castro, 51, Jose Salud Castro, 70, Salvador Castro, 53, Miguel Castro, 55, Jose Luis Mendez, 45, and Andrea Burrow, 49, with mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.\u00a0 The indictment, secured by the Department\u2019s Consumer Protection Branch and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Nevada, also charges Salvador Castro with making a false statement to investigators.\u00a0 U.S. Postal Inspectors arrested five of the defendants last night. The sixth, Jose Salud Castro, turned himself into authorities this morning.<\/p>\n

According to the indictment, the defendants\u2019 prize-notification scheme led victims, many of whom were elderly and vulnerable, to believe that they could pay a small $20 or $30 fee to claim a large cash prize.\u00a0 The indictment alleged that none of the victims who submitted fees ever received a large cash prize.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department will pursue and prosecute those who defraud elderly or vulnerable consumers,\u201d said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice\u2019s Civil Division. \u201cWe have alleged that these defendants perpetrated a cruel hoax on their victims and relentlessly targeted many with repeated fraudulent mailings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The indictment asserts that the defendants operated the scheme from 2010 to February 2018, when postal inspectors executed multiple search warrants and the Department of Justice obtained a court order shutting down the fraudulent mail operation.\u00a0 Mario Castro, Jose Salud Castro, Salvador Castro, Miguel Castro, and Jose Luis Mendez allegedly worked at the printing and mailing businesses that sent the fraudulent mail and shared the profits from the fraudulent prize notices.\u00a0 The remaining defendant, Andrea Burrow, opened victim return mail, sorted cash and other payments, and entered data from the victims\u2019 responses into a database that the scheme used to target past victims with more fraudulent mail, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n

The defendants are alleged to have ignored multiple cease and desist orders from the United States Postal Service that prohibited their mailing companies from sending fraudulent mail.\u00a0 The defendants responded by changing the names of their companies and using straw owners to hide their continuing fraud.<\/p>\n

Three of the defendants\u2019 co-conspirators \u2013 Patti Kern, Edgar Del Rio, and Sean O\u2019Connor \u2013 pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a priority of this office to dismantle organizations like this one that prey on the elderly and vulnerable,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Nicholas Trutanich for the District of Nevada. \u201cWe will continue to investigate and prosecute these large-scale frauds that operate in Nevada and across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people who received these solicitations in the mail thought they were winners, but they were not.\u00a0 In fact, they were victims of scams exploiting the vulnerable.\u00a0 For many years, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has been at the forefront of protecting consumers from fraud.\u00a0 The consequences of this type of financial fraud scheme are far reaching and damaging.\u00a0 Anyone who engages in such conduct should know they will not go undetected and will be held accountable,\u201d said Inspector in Charge Delany De Leon-Colon of U.S. Postal Inspection Service\u2019s Criminal Investigations Group at National Headquarters.<\/p>\n

The mail fraud and conspiracy charges each carry a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. \u00a0The false statement charge carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison. \u00a0Each charge also carries a statutory maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or gross loss from the offense.<\/p>\n

An indictment is an accusation by a federal grand jury and is not evidence of guilt.\u00a0 The defendants should be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case.\u00a0 The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Timothy Finley and Daniel Zytnick of the Department of Justice\u2019s Consumer Protection Branch and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Dickinson of the District of Nevada.<\/p>\n

Since President Trump signed the bipartisan Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act (EAPPA) into law, the Department of Justice has participated in hundreds of enforcement actions in criminal and civil cases that targeted or disproportionately affected seniors.\u00a0 In particular, this past March the Department announced the largest elder fraud enforcement action in American history,\u00a0charging more than 260 defendants in a nationwide elder fraud sweep<\/a>.\u00a0 The Department has likewise conducted hundreds of trainings and outreach sessions across the country since the passage of the Act.\u00a0 Additional information on the Department of Justice\u2019s efforts to combat elder fraud is at:\u00a0https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/civil\/consumer-protection-branch\/elder-fraud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Six Charged In Multi-Million Dollar Elder Fraud Scheme LAS VEGAS, Nev.\u00a0\u2013 DOJ 11\/14\/19 – Six Las Vegas, Nevada area residents were charged with running a fraudulent mass-mailing scheme that tricked hundreds of thousands of consumers into paying more than $10\u00a0million in fees for falsely promised cash prizes, the Department of Justice has announced. The unsealed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27635,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27634\/revisions\/27635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}