Phone Lottery Scammer from Canada back in Jail

This is the same scam as we often see through email, an advance fee lottery scam. The difference is that this scammer used phone calls to target his victims. We have information about advance fee lottery scams on our forum here: Overview of Lottery Scams

Note that the scammer is believed to have scammed over $3 million dollars from victims in three years. Scammers are not petty thieves!

Article is here: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/ ... 1-qmi.html

Full content of article:

Phone scam suspect back in jail

By SHAWN LOGAN, QMI Agency

CALGARY - Mounties say an alleged phone scammer recently released from jail wouldn't curtail his criminal calling and is back behind bars.

Albert Valentine Onolunose, 29, was released from prison last month while awaiting trial for several counts of fraud linked to a telephone con in which he allegedly contacted victims and told them they had cashed in on a lottery -- but the only way to claim their prize was to pay taxes or lawyers' fees first.

RCMP said the scam is believed to have bilked numerous elderly victims in the U.S. out of more than $3 million between 2005 and 2008.

But after just a month of freedom, Staff Sgt. Gord Sereda of the RCMP's commercial crime unit said Onolunose breached bail conditions by allegedly trying to re-establish the illicit telemarketing business that landed him with 29 fraud-related charges in the first place.

"It appears that he went back to conducting the same scam that he had been doing in the past," Sereda said.

Investigators believe he was trying to contact more victims, even while he was awaiting to go to trial for his previous charges.

Onolunose was arrested on Wednesday after Mounties checked up on him.

He's facing nine counts of breaching his release conditions and has added an additional fraud charge over $5,000 to the two dozen he already faces.

Sereda said chasing down telephone scammers is difficult because they often target victims in other jurisdictions, making it a challenge to zero in on perpetrators.

But he noted the same rules apply to any phone scam: If you win without buying a ticket or have to pony up before receiving any winnings, you're likely being duped.

"You don't win a lottery without entering and normally lotteries don't require advance fees," Sereda said.

"Seniors, unfortunately, are a popular target because they're quite often trusting and don't have the support system that they can check in to these things first."

Onolunose is in custody and scheduled to appear in court to answer the new charges on April 30.

[email protected]