A NEWYORK MAN has been found guilty of laundering nearly $1 million stolen from elderly victims across the country, including Arizona.
Ivan Wilbur Seales, 58, a resident of NewYork and citizen of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, was found guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering on April 7, following a six-day jury trial. Numerous victims lost significant portions of their life savings to the scam.
Seales kept a portion of the ill-gotten gains for himself and helped the scammers launder the remaining funds through a maze of financial transactions he conducted either through cryptocurrency transfers or other financial transfers offshore, to include to India, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The scam organization targeted elderly victims using phishing attacks such as fraudulent emails, text messages, popups, or websites impersonating trusted entities like banks and software or tech companies.
Some victims observed a pop-up display causing their computer to freeze. These victims were directed to call other scammers who claimed to be representatives of legitimate companies such as Apple or Microsoft.
Other victims received phishing emails or text messages indicating they had received a charge on their account from Geek Squad, PayPal or an antivirus software company. These charges never occurred but were sent to the victims to lure them into the scheme.
Once the victims called the fraudsters, they were led to believe that these legitimate companies erroneously transferred an over-refunded amount to the victims’ bank accounts. As instructed, victims then transferred their own money back to the scammers believing they were returning the scammers the over-refunded amounts.
Victims were also lied to and informed that their bank accounts had been hacked or were compromised. Some were also told that money from their bank accounts was directed to child sexual abuse material, pornography or a gambling site.
To further the scam, the fraudsters directed the victims to transfer their money to various locations to protect their accounts or to catch the scammers. Seales, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was remanded into custody after the jury’s verdict.
Sentencing is set for June 18. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and NewYork State Police conducted the investigation. The prosecution was handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Arizona, Tucson. (Source:KVOA)
