EYEWITNESS NEWS (WBRE/WYOU) — The lead courier in a Dominican Republic-based mail fraud scheme has been sentenced to prison, followed by a 3-year term of supervised release.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Josiah DeJesus, 22, of Bronx, New York, was sentenced on Thursday, February 29, to 6 years and 8 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for his role as coordination courier in the “grandparents” fraud scheme that preyed on elderly victim from across the country.
According to U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam, from June 2020 to October 2020, DeJesus and a group of men from Bronx, New Y ork that he recruited regularly traveled from New York City to Pennsylvania to retrieve UPS and FedEx packages containing thousands of dollars in cash.
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Karam says these packages were sent by elderly victims, who were persuaded to send cash based upon false claims that their grandchildren had been arrested and charged with serious crimes and were in immediate need of money.