Data broker sentenced to 10 years for selling personal details of 7 million elderly Americans to scammers

A federal judge has sentenced a North Carolina man to 121 months in federal prison for orchestrating a massive, seven-year data-brokering scheme that compromised the personal information of more than seven million elderly United States citizens.

The defendant intentionally targeted some of the country’s most vulnerable populations, harvesting highly specific demographic data and selling it directly to predatory international telemarketing rings based in Jamaica. Along with the 10-year prison sentence and a subsequent three-year term of supervised release, the court ordered a massive financial penalty, forcing the defendant to pay a forfeiture judgment totaling $5,214,688.48.

The prosecution was led by the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, operating under an aggressive federal mandate to dismantle sophisticated international networks that specifically target elderly and disabled Americans.

Inside the seven-year lead generation pipeline

Federal court documents reveal that the defendant operated a highly sophisticated data aggregate business that slowly morphed into an intentional pipeline for elder fraud. Over a span of seven years, the defendant utilized corporate data infrastructure to meticulously filter lists of millions of Americans, isolating individuals based on advanced age, low-income status, and susceptibility to aggressive marketing tactics.

Instead of selling these leads to legitimate commercial enterprises, the defendant established highly lucrative distribution channels with illicit call centers in Jamaica. These networks operated notorious "lottery scams" where fraudsters call elderly individuals, and falsely inform them that they have won a multi-million-dollar international sweepstakes. They then insist that the target wire thousands of dollars upfront to clear fictitious "processing fees" and "government taxes."

Because the Jamaican scammers possessed the highly detailed personal information sold by the defendant, they easily bypassed their victims' natural skepticism, projecting an aura of institutional legitimacy that resulted in catastrophic financial losses for millions of senior households.

Elder fraud continues to rise

The case comes amid a broader surge in scams targeting older Americans. Federal authorities warn that elderly victims remain one of the most heavily targeted groups in online fraud schemes, particularly those involving lottery scams, impersonation fraud, and financial extortion.