Montrealer sentenced to 9 years in U.S. prison for $2.6M phone scam targeting elderly victims

File photo.

A man extradited from Jamaica in winter 2021 has finally been sentenced in a U.S. fraud case that prosecutors said totalled about $2.6 million taken from elderly victims.

Martin Hogan, 53, was given 111 months, which equals just over nine years, for leading a wire and mail fraud ring that involved co-conspirators who would drive money over the border from upstate New York.

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Hogan was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud over the ring, which operated between September 2015 and March 2020.

"Hogan placed telephone calls from Canada to victims in the United States, telling them that they had won the Canadian lottery," wrote the U.S. District Attorney for Western New York in a press release Tuesday."

However, victims were told that they had to first pay the taxes, brokerage fee, and/or custom fees due in connection with the winnings."

Some of the victims mailed cash to addresses in New York, where Hogan's co-conspirators would pick it up and drive it to him, often through the cross-border community of Akwesasne.

Several of the co-conspirators have already been convicted and sentenced, including one man who got a six-year sentence.

When Hogan was extradited to the U.S. in January 2021, he was on vacation in Jamaica, using money he got from the fraud scheme, the press release said.