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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: December 6, 2005 |
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A federal judge has upheld the government's seizure of about $3.8 million from several U.S. accounts in Israeli and Jordanian banks as restitution to defrauded American widows and widowers in a Canadian-based telemarketing scheme.
U.S. Attorney Tom Colantuono said Monday that the forfeiture ruling was issued last week in one of the first cases brought under the Patriot Act.
The seizure stems from the 2002 indictment of 14 Canadians after a Royal Canadian Mounted Police, FBI, U.S. Postal Service, Immigration and Surete du Quebec investigation revealed the group defrauded more than 90 victims by telling them they had won large lottery prizes but had to prepay Canadian taxes and fees to get the cash.
Seven of the Canadians have been sentenced from 30 months to 10 years in prison; two are fugitives; and five have yet to be extradited from Canada, Colantuono said.
Colantuono earlier said the Canadians operated from Montreal and Vancouver, British Columbia, telling the victims to send $10,000 cashier's checks to Montreal addresses to get their $200,000 prizes. Once the checks arrived, the victims were telephoned again and told their winnings had increased to $2 million but they had to send an extra $20,000 to get the higher prizes.
The cashier's checks, Colantuono said, were exchanged for Canadian dollars and the money was laundered through Israeli and Jordanian Banks.
Colantuono on Monday identified six Israeli banks and the branch in the West Bank city of Ramallah of the Union Bank for Savings and Investment in Jordan.
Colantuono said the Jordanian bank challenged the Patriot Act as violating the U.S. Constitution, but U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro rejected the claim.
Colantuono said about $1 million has been distributed so far to the victims, who lost about $7 million in the fraud. |
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