A Jamaican man who helped run a lottery scam that mostly targeted seniors in the U.S. was yesterday sentenced to five years in federal prison in Florida.
Authorities said victims of the fraud received phone calls informing them that they had won millions of dollars or other valuable prizes in a lottery and were persuaded to send advance cash fees of hundreds or thousands of dollars so they could collect their winnings.
Federal prosecutors said the calls were a convincing scam that tricked vulnerable people into sending money to middlemen in South Florida who then passed it on to the people who ran the conspiracy in Jamaica.
28 year old Oneike Mickhale Barnett apologised to all of the victims yesterday, though none of them attended his sentencing in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.
The Jamaican pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
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