Federal prosecutors say a San Diego barber helped construct a profitable worldwide fraud empire that preyed on the aged and recruited and educated People to trick seniors out of their life financial savings as a result of, as investigators put it, native American English audio system “had the next conversion fee in defrauding aged People.”
In a movement to detain filed this month in San Diego, federal prosecutors accused 43-year-old Victor Lee Marion Jr. of being the U.S. chief of a world group primarily based in India that has stolen a minimum of $40 million from greater than 500 older victims since 2021. They describe Marion, often called “Vic” or “Peyami,” as a key organizer who used his San Diego barbershop to recruit and handle a community of cash launderers.
The group operated what the FBI calls a “multi-phase elder fraud scheme” that started with pop-up pc warnings claiming a sufferer’s gadget was contaminated with a virus. The victims, typically retirees with restricted technical data, had been directed to name bogus “assist” traces run by overseas scammers pretending to work for Microsoft or different well-known tech corporations.
As soon as victims paid a small payment for faux tech companies, the operations contacted them once more, claiming that they had been over-refunded and now owed the corporate 1000’s of {dollars}.
On this section of the ruse, scammers often called “closers” used distant entry software program to control victims’ pc screens and make it seem as if their financial institution accounts contained an excessive amount of cash. Believing they wanted to return the surplus, the victims despatched money, checks, or wire transfers to U.S.-based intermediaries like Marion’s group in San Diego, prosecutors allege.
These “cash transmitters” stored a lower and despatched the remainder of the stolen cash to abroad accounts managed by the ring’s overseas leaders. The operation was so in depth that the FBI obtained recordings of greater than 100,000 calls between scammers and their principally aged victims.
In keeping with prosecutors, Marion and a number of other recruits traveled to Thailand in 2024 for what investigators describe as a lavish “coaching camp.”
Marion’s occasion “started their journey on stage at a Thai nightclub with foreign-based leaders of the scheme, the place they danced with Thai membership dancers and threw stacks of cash—cash made by defrauding aged People—into the air and out into the group,” the detention submitting stated.
Later, the ring leaders allegedly took the People on “high-end Thai vacationer actions” like petting tigers.
Throughout the journeys, which embrace complimentary first-class flights and different lodging, the ring leaders “described the character of the scheme intimately, had cash transmitters shadow a Nearer, introduced them to a villa, after which—if the cash transmitters agreed—educated them for weeks on tips on how to be Closers.”
When the group returned to San Diego, they allegedly continued coordinating funds via faux corporations tied to Marion’s barbershop, which prosecutors say doubled as a gathering place and recruitment hub for the scheme.
Prosecutors described Marion as each a flight threat and an “financial hazard to the neighborhood,” noting that lots of the aged victims don’t have any strategy to get well what they misplaced.
“Lots of the victims suffered irreparable financial damage and the lack of their life financial savings at a essential juncture,” prosecutors wrote. “Many are so outdated they can’t return to the workforce and can dwell with the influence of the loss for the remainder of their lives.”
Marion faces federal costs of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and cash laundering. Due to the size of the operation, the sophistication of the scheme, and what prosecutors referred to as the “substantial hardship” inflicted on tons of of “weak” victims, sentencing pointers place his potential punishment within the vary of 30 years to life in jail, in keeping with federal officers.
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