WASHINGTON – More than 135 people have been arrested in an investigation of global telemarketing scams that have victimized 5 million people, many of them elderly, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday.
Schemes targeted in the yearlong investigation, dubbed “Operation Roaming Charge,” have cost victims an estimated $1 billion. Among them: a $500 million phone billing scam that involved members of the Gambino crime family in New York and included a fake call center where bogus operators tried to talk people into paying the charges.
The probe also uncovered bogus lottery and sweepstakes scams, fake preapproved credit cards, offers of nonexistent investments, tax evasion scams and so-called recovery rooms in which people posing as law enforcers offered to help victims recoup losses for a fee.
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