Feds Bust Phone Fraud Operations

“You don’t know what I’ve been through,” the 78-year-old woman pleaded with the telemarketing con man who called, pressing her to send him $500, then as little as $100 to make her eligible for a $50,000 cashier’s check.

Having already lost life savings of $180,000 to telemarketing swindlers making similar pitches, she resisted, then began sobbing as he and a confederate turned up the pressure.

Finally, he gave up in disgust. “You’re going to your grave a loser,” he snarled.

The brutal telephone fraud was taped as part of a two-year, joint federal and state undercover investigation of telemarketing crime aimed primarily at elderly victims. It was aired Thursday as authorities, led by the FBI, arrested 277 suspects in 15 states. That brought total arrests in the operation, known as Senior Sentinel, to 391, with more anticipated.

In conducting the investigation, specially trained volunteers from the American Association of Retired Persons posed as intended recipients of the illegal telemarketing calls.

“Telephone pitches from illicit boiler room operations cost Americans $40 billion a year,” said Attorney General Janet Reno in announcing the crackdown. She said victims commonly received five or more calls a day from high-pressure telephone salespeople once they made their first purchase or contribution.

Among the suspects caught in San Diego was Derrick Lyle Banks, 29, who the FBI said was the man who called the elderly Colorado woman heard sobbing on the tape.