Hundreds arrested in $1 billion fraud schemes

Law enforcement agencies in five countries, including Canada have arrested more than 500 people in fraud schemes that bilked about $1 billion from victims.

"These criminals used telemarketing, the Internet and mass mailings to cheat unsuspecting people through bogus investments, fake lotteries and sweepstake schemes, phoney credit cards and tax frauds," said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales called the 14-month investigation, dubbed Operation Global Con, "the largest enforcement operation of its kind."

He said the operationresulted in 139 arrests in the United States and another 426 in four other countries— Canada, Costa Rica, the Netherlands and Spain.

In the U.S. alone, some three million people were defrauded, most of them elderly people andrecent immigrants.Schemes included spam email messages asking people to send money for huge lottery jackpots,loans or non-existent investments.

The Justice Department said many of those arrested are West Africanswho wereattempting variations of the so-called Nigerian Internet scam. The scheme involves sending junk e-mail to people offering them a share in a largewindfall in exchange for asmall amount ofmoney up front.

Deborah Majoras of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said some of scams originated in Canada, where 96 people were arrested.

"We stopped a Toronto-based operation that may have taken as much as $1 million a month from American businesses for business-directory listings that they neither wanted, nor needed," she said.

A Vancouver man has also been charged with fraud for allegedly offering consumers in the United States a big cash payout.They were told allthey had to do is send in a small fee to claim the prize. Officials said he received cheques for almost $3 million.

Another scheme operated from Toronto promised loans to people with credit problems but $400 was needed up front first.