February 19, 2016

Ohio resident Paul Toth was sentenced to 108 months in prison and to pay $307,702 in restitution and to forfeit the same amount for his role in laundering money for a Costa Rica-based “sweepstakes fraud” scheme.  The evidence at trial showed that telemarketers in Costa Rica, who were Roth’s co-conspirators, posed as federal agents and deceived the victims into believing they had won a large monetary prize in a sweepstakes contest and falsely told them in order to receive the “prize,” they had to wire thousands of dollars to Costa Rica for a “refundable insurance fee.”  DOJ