Myrtle Beach group scams elderly out of over $600K in fake sweepstakes scheme, feds say
On a cloudy Friday afternoon in February, federal agents watched as a letter carrier left a package at a Myrtle Beach apartment. It was addressed to Marsha Williams, who does not exist.
The agents continued to watch as a gold Honda Odyssey arrived and parked in front of building 901 in the River Landing apartment complex. Fabian Gray exited the van, put the package inside and entered the apartment. The package, from Rochelle, Georgia, contained money sent from an adult who believed they had won a sweepstakes but needed to pay taxes and fees for a reward that would never come.
It is unclear how much money RB, as they are identified in court documents, sent Gray and his group, but a federal indictment states that over the course of six years approximately $665,000 was swindled from more than 100 victims, mostly elderly people older than 65. With the elderly population growing, the FBI says seniors are racking up more than $3 billion in losses annually.
Gray, Avia Reid, Khalelah Powell and Romaine Gordon were federally indicted last month on 13 counts of various crimes relating to scamming seniors, including wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. The four have ties to Jamaica and lived in the Myrtle Beach area. Gray and Reid are not U.S. citizens, according to prosecutors with the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
Gray had previously been investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for a similar scheme in 2015, when six Horry County residents were convicted. Reid’s mother was also convicted as part of a similar scheme. The pair risk deportation if convicted.
The scam
Beginning in June 2015, the group, using aliases, contacted elderly victims across the country posing as a genuine sweepstakes company. The callers would tell people about the prize they had won: large sums of cash, vehicles and other prizes. All they had to do to claim their winnings was mail money to an address in Myrtle Beach.
Victims purchased prepaid cards, money orders, wire transfers, and mailed personal checks and cash to Gray and his group. They were told the money was for taxes and fees necessary for them to receive their prizes. Instead, the money was transferred to Jamaica and elsewhere using services like Western Union and MoneyGram. This continued for as long as the victim could be persuaded to send additional money.
Through a network of 65 PayPal accounts, Western Union and MoneyGram transfers, Gray received and sent tens of thousands of dollars from elderly victims. Records from Comerica Bank, based in Texas, show four accounts associated with Gray’s Myrtle Beach address, each of them using victims’ names. The victims were all from Florida, California and Missouri.
Someone from the group called the bank’s customer service and changed each of the victims’ address to a Myrtle Beach address that investigators say belonged to Gray. Then the group went to a Myrtle Beach ATM and withdrew hundreds of dollars before the addresses were corrected by the bank.
Arrests
On June 10, 2020 Gray, Reid and Gordon were arrested by U.S. Marshals during the execution of a search warrant. Police seized laptops, cellphones, hard drives and bank documents at the Myrtle Beach residence The next day they all pleaded not guilty. On June 15, the trio had a detention hearing in which Magistrate Judge Thomas E Rogers determined that the group needed to be detained before their trial, listing multiple reasons including the evidence against them and fact the Gray and Reid are not citizens..
On June 21, Powell was arrested and pleaded not guilty as well and skipped a detention hearing.
Gray is being represented by Francis J Cornely, Reid by Russell B Long and Casey Riddle, Powell by William H Monckton, and Gordon by T Kirk Truslow and William B von Herrmann, according to online court records. The case will be prosecuted by Derek Shoemake, Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of South Carolina.
The maximum penalty the defendants could receive per count is 20 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. Because the indictment alleges that the defendants targeted victims over the age of 55, the defendants face an enhanced penalty of up to 10 additional years for the first 12 counts of the indictment.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 6:58 AM.
