OHIO
A federal jury found a 76-year-old man guilty Wednesday for his role in a seven-million-dollar telemarketing scheme that defrauded primarily elderly victims in the U.S. from call centers in Costa Rica, according to officials.
Following a five-day jury trial, Donald Dodt, originally of Cleveland, Ohio, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, two counts of mail fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit international money laundering and 10 counts of international money laundering.
Dodt and his conspirators stole more than $7 million from victims, the evidence showed.
According to the evidence, Dodt worked in a call center in Costa Rica in which co-conspirators, who posed as representatives of the District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and federal agencies, including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
They also said they were federal judges, contacted victims in the United States — primarily senior citizens – to tell them that that they had supposedly won a substantial “sweepstakes” prize, according to authorities.
After convincing victims that they stood to receive a significant financial reward, the co-conspirators told victims that they needed to make a series of up-front cash payments before collecting, purportedly for items like insurance fees, taxes, and import fees.
Co-conspirators used a variety of means to conceal their true identities, such as Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP services provided by Dodt that made it appear that they were calling from Washington, D.C., and other places in the United States.
As the evidence presented at trial illustrated, Dodt was an integral part of this scheme in that he knowingly provided services that were necessary for the scheme to operate and that facilitated the concealment and, ultimately, success of the scheme for many years.
Specifically, Dodt provided and maintained VoIP phone technology and assigned phone numbers associated with locations in the United States through which members of the conspiracy were able to make the fraudulent calls to victims in the United States and conceal their identities and location.
Dodt specifically assigned virtual phone numbers with area codes associated with Washington, D.C., to make it appear that the calls originated from within the United States and that also bolstered conspirators’ misrepresentations that they were representatives of government agencies located in Washington.
Dodt also warned the co-conspirators if certain numbers were “hot” – i.e., there were customer complaints or law enforcement inquiries – and replaced those phone numbers with new phone numbers that the co-conspirators then used in furtherance of the scheme, the evidence showed.
NOTE:
This case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the FBI with assistance from the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.
The case is being prosecuted by Fraud Section Trial Attorneys William Bowne, Jennifer Farer and Philip Trout. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina provided substantial assistance with this matter.