On November 6, 2019, in the District of Arizona, a second superseding indictment was filed charging David Odean McIntosh and his codefendants with wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with a fraudulent sweepstakes or lottery scheme.

According to the indictment, the purpose of the scheme was to fraudulently obtain money from various victims through a fraudulent sweepstakes or lottery scheme. McIntosh and his coconspirators purchased, sold, obtained, used, or transferred “lead lists” containing the personal information of thousands of potential elderly victims, including their names, addresses, ages, dates of birth, income levels, net worth, and whether the potential victims had a credit card. The coconspirators used these “lead lists” to target, lure, and locate their elderly victims for the scheme to defraud. The coconspirators would e-mail, through interstate commerce, fraudulent letters and other communications purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and “Publishers Clearing House.” These communications falsely represented that the victims had won a cash prize. These communications also fraudulently represented that, in order to obtain their winnings, the victims were required to make arrangements to pay taxes or other fees. In reality, the coconspirators merely made these false and fraudulent representations with the intent to defraud, solely to obtain the victims’ money, and without any intent to provide any prize winnings.

One victim received fraudulent communications from the coconspirators and made arrangements to provide the “fees,” believing that the victim had won and would receive the prize winnings in return. The victim never received any legitimate money or prize winnings from the coconspirators. In total, the victim lost approximately $74,000 from this scheme to defraud. McIntosh is currently in custody in Florida and is awaiting transfer to Arizona.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available documents: S.D. Fla. Commitment to Another District filed October 16, 2019; and D. Ariz. Superseding Indict. filed Nov. 6, 2019.