A resident of Lima, Peru, was extradited to the United States and made his initial appearance Friday in Miami federal court, where he stands accused of operating a large fraud and extortion scheme, officials stated.
Jose Alejandro Zuñiga Cano, 40, was arrested on Feb. 26, 2023, by Peruvian authorities in response to a U.S. extradition request.
He has remained incarcerated in Peru since that time.
According to the indictment, the defendant managed and operated Peruvian call centers from January 2014 through February 2019.
The defendant and his co-conspirators in Peru allegedly used Internet-based telephone calls to contact Spanish-speaking individuals in the United States.
The call centers falsely told victims they had won raffles for free products, including computer tablets with English language courses.
Many consumers expressed interest in receiving the free products. In later calls, victims were told to make large payments to receive the products.
When victims objected, the callers misrepresented that the victims had unlawfully failed to pay for or receive delivery of products.
“Collaboration between countries enhances efforts to strengthen rule of law,” said Inspector in Charge Juan A. Vargas of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Miami Division. “The U.S. Postal Inspection Service thanks the Republic of Peru and our law enforcement partners who were determined to dismantle this transnational scheme to defraud U.S. consumers via the U.S. mail and telephonically. Together, we sent a strong message, globally, that justice has no borders.”
According to the indictment, the defendant and his co-conspirators falsely claimed to be lawyers, court officials, police officers, and representatives of a supposed “minor crimes court.”
The defendant and his co-conspirators falsely told the victims that they had a contractual obligation to pay for and receive products and had caused legal problems for themselves and others by allegedly failing to do so.
The indictment alleges that the callers also falsely threatened victims with court proceedings, arrest, negative marks on their credit reports, or immigration consequences if they did not immediately pay for the purportedly delivered products and settlement fees.
According to the indictment, many victims paid because of these baseless threats.
Sometimes, the defendant and his co-conspirators re-victimized the same victims with a related “restitution” fraud scheme.
According to the indictment, the defendant and his co-conspirators placed additional calls to those victims who had already paid and, while posing as lawyers from a U.S. court, falsely represented that victims were entitled to restitution payments that would compensate them for their losses to the defendant and his co-conspirators in the first part of their scheme.
The defendant and his co-conspirators fraudulently told these victims that they needed to pay a percentage of their restitution to a lawyer who supposedly brought a case and recovered restitution on their behalf.
In reality, no lawyer, no restitution order, and no funds were returned to the victims who made these additional payments.
A seven-count federal indictment was filed against the defendant in federal court in Florida in November It was unsealed upon the defendant’s extradition to the United States.
2021. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The defendant has been charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, and extortion.
An indictment merely alleges that crimes have been committed. If convicted, Zuñiga faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
USPIS investigated the case.
Senior Trial Attorney and Transnational Criminal Litigation Coordinator Phil Toomajian and Trial Attorney Carolyn Rice of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch are prosecuting the case.
If you or someone you know is 60 or older and has experienced financial fraud, experienced professionals are standing by at the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311).