(Reuters) – Federal prosecutors in California have charged five Canadian men with running a multi-million-dollar telemarketing fraud aimed at conning elderly residents of Southern California into paying off non-existent magazine subscription debts.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles said on Tuesday that a federal grand jury last Friday issued a 10-count indictment charging the five – all of whom prosecutors said lived in Quebec province – with conspiracy and nine counts of wire fraud.
Prosecutors alleged that between 2013 and September 2015, the defendants, based at the time in Montreal and Toronto, contacted potential victims around the U.S. claiming to represent magazine subscription services with names like “Global Readers” and “American Reader Services.”
During the phone calls, the accused Canadians allegedly told would-be victims that if they paid off what the caller claimed they “owed” for magazine subscriptions, their debts would be settled and they would not receive future phone calls, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said that in reality, the elderly Americans the Canadians phoned did not owe the money the callers demanded. But prosecutors said that the targeted call recipients’ personal information was collected and stored by the accused fraudsters so they could make charges to the victims’ financial accounts and so the victims could be targeted for further calls.
The indictment alleges total losses in the case exceeded $1 million. Prosecutors said each count of the indictment carries a U.S. prison term of up to 20 years.
(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
