Jose Alejandro Zuñiga Cano was sentenced to 98 months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $700,000 in restitution for his involvement in overseeing a transnational fraud conspiracy that targeted over 1,100 victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced today.
According to the department, Zuñiga, 40, of Lima, Peru, operated a Peruvian call center that defrauded Spanish-speaking U.S. residents by falsely threatening them with arrest, legal action, and immigration consequences if they did not comply with fraudulent demands.
Zuñiga was extradited from Peru in March to face charges related to the scheme and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in July, according to the department.
Court documents indicate that Zuñiga’s call center placed unsolicited calls to Spanish-speaking consumers in the United States, falsely claiming they had won free products, such as computer tablets or English language courses.
Later, Zuñiga and his co-conspirators demanded large payments, claiming the victims were contractually obligated to pay for the products they had supposedly won.