SAN DIEGO, California — Zhao Wang, a 41-year-old from Las Vegas, Nevada, was sentenced to 151 months in federal prison for orchestrating a $27 million fraud and money laundering scheme that targeted approximately 2,000 elderly victims across the United States.
Wang, also known as “Oscar,” was the lead defendant in a five-person indictment unsealed in 2024. The conspiracy involved technical support, bank impersonation, government impersonation, and refund scams, according to public documents. Victims were contacted through unsolicited phone calls, emails, and pop-up ads, directing them to call numbers linked to India-based scam call centers. Once contacted, conspirators used social engineering to gain victims’ trust, often having them download remote desktop software to access their computers.
A common scam involved refund schemes where victims were told they were owed a small refund, only to be tricked into believing they were over-refunded. Victims were then instructed to send the supposed excess money via wire transfers or express mail to conspirators, including Wang, in the United States. Wang and his co-conspirators used fake IDs to collect these packages, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office…