$365,000 to protect your home computer?

Government targets scammers that prey on the nation’s elderly and infirm

WASHINGTON – One man, alarmed at the thought that hackers might attack his computer, shelled out $14,990 to a company promising a “fix” that would keep it safe.

Eight months later, the 68-year-old from Hawaii mailed the same company a check for $24,999 more. And he kept paying. All told, the unnamed man, who suffers from dementia, sent about $356,000 in checks and wire transfers, unaware that the computer security alert was part of a network of elaborate scams that the government says cost the nation’s elderly and infirm hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year alone.

The case is part of a heartbreaking archive of court documents filed in just the past year, charging more than 200 suspects with trying to swindle 2 million Americans, most of them elderly.

Federal authorities said the illicit operations, some based in the U.S. and others scattered across the globe, looted seniors of nearly $1 billion. The charges brought in the past 12 months, the second such enforcement campaign in as many years, represents the largest of the federal sweeps against elder fraud.

“Crimes against the elderly target some of the most vulnerable people in our society,” Attorney General William Barr said Thursday. He said the Justice Department will intensify its efforts to target those cams, promising to mount an “all-out attack.”

The broad enforcement effort, involving the FBI, Postal Inspection Service, Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security, identified suspects in Canada, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Poland. The far-flung networks involved groups of varying sizes, from small boiler-room operations to organizations involving as many as 500 people who worked day and night shifts calling potential targets throughout the U.S., authorities said.