The Justice Department has formed a transnational elder fraud strike force to combat the growing international problem of elder fraud.
Elder fraud is when fraudsters prey on older victims who can be more susceptible to when approached to give money to sympathetic causes and in some cases threatened and harassed by criminals.
Recently, three Peruvian men pleaded guilty to extorting older Americans through a Spanish-speaking call center.
“For example, one such script directed the callers to falsely and fraudulently claim to be government attorneys and to state that the victims faced lawsuits and fines for not paying for or receiving packages. Other scripts included similar stories where the callers falsely claimed to be attorneys with courts or credit bureaus in the United States,” the indictment in the case reads.
