SCRANTON — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Pennsylvania, Middle), published as received.
SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced today that Yeurys Peguero-Rosario, age 25, of Bronx, NY, was sentenced on January 25, 2024, by United States District Judge Robert D. Mariani to 21 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release, for his role as a courier in a Dominican Republic-based “grandparents” fraud scheme that preyed upon elderly American victims from states across the country.
According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, from approximately June 2020 to October 2020, along with a group of other men from Bronx, NY, Peguero-Rosario regularly traveled from New York City to locations in Pennsylvania to retrieve UPS and Fed Ex packages containing thousands of dollars in cash. These packages were sent by elderly victims, who were induced to send the money based upon false claims that their grandchildren had been arrested and charged with serious crimes and, consequently, were in immediate need of money. These false claims were made to the elderly victims in phone calls that they received from oversees co-conspirators in the Dominican Republic, who posed either as the victims’ grandchildren or as attorneys representing the victims’ grandchildren.
At his sentencing, Peguero-Rosario was ordered to pay $220,000.00 in restitution to the victims of the scheme.
This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation –Philadelphia Division, and its state and local law enforcement partners in Berks County, PA. Assistant United States Attorney Jeffery St John prosecuted the case.
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