HARRISBURG – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Troy Smith, age 27, and Michelle Greenwood, age 36, of Mississippi, were indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2021 on eighteen counts of conspiracy, wire fraud mail fraud, and money laundering conspiracy for receiving funds from sweepstakes scam victims and transferring a portion of those funds to coconspirators located in Jamaica.  This indictment was unsealed by Court order on February 2, 2022.

According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, the indictment alleges that between August 2016 and June 2018, the defendants and other unindicted coconspirators received consumer fraud-induced MoneyGram, Western Union, and Ria money transfers, bank wires and deposits, checks, and cash from victims across the United States totaling more than $300,000.

Their victims included a 51-year-old widow residing in Columbia County, in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. In October 2016, an unidentified fraudster using a fictitious name and posing as an official of a sweepstakes organization falsely told Victim 1 that she had won a multi-million-dollar cash prize and automobile. This fraudster also told Victim 1 that she had to prepay taxes, and later various other fees and expenses, in order to receive her cash prize and automobile. Victim 1 was directed to send money in the form of money transfers, bank wires, and cash mailings payable to the defendants in their own names and in various aliases. Victim 1 was told that the defendants were also officials of the sweepstakes organization. She ended up sending about $123,000 in the form of Western Union, MoneyGram, and Ria money transfers to the defendants and coconspirators, making about $90,000 in cash deposits into their accounts, depositing about $14,000 in the form of bank wire transfers, and mailing about $2,000 in cash and money orders.

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