In 2018, a New York lawyer swindled $107 million from lottery winners who hired him to manage their investments. Several years ago, he claimed in an interview that lottery winners could be easy targets for fraudsters. In August, a Brooklyn federal prosecutor accused Long Island lawyer Jason Kurland of defrauding lottery winners who entrusted him with the management of their funds. Kurland was arrested on the morning of 18 August along with three other men who had allegedly used money from numerous lottery winners for private jets, expensive travel and yachts.

One of those arrested, Christopher Chierchio, is allegedly related to the Gambino crime family, prosecutors said. The Gambino family is one of the “five families” controlling organised criminal activity in New York, simply put, the Mafia.

Kurland managed to win over customers – lottery winners – and convince them that he would help them multiply their winnings. The scheme was as follows: clients would transfer funds to him, the fraud lawyer would transfer the proceeds to business deals controlled by Chierchio and other defendants in exchange for kickbacks. Lottery winners paid Kurland between $75 000 and $200 000 in advance for his services, as well as monthly payments of $15 000 to $50 000.

A jeweller named Gregory Altieri received a $250 000 loan from lottery winners; when Altieri failed to pay it back, two of the other defendants, Francesco Russo and Francis Smookler, rushed to torture him and even threatened to kill his family.

Interestingly, in a 2016 interview with Vice, Kurland said that lottery winners could be easy targets for fraudsters: “A lot of these winners are not sophisticated enough to see it, so you really have to rely on professionals.”

The defendants’ phones were tapped for months. Investigators recorded conversations during which the fraudsters discussed the scheme and how they could conceal the theft if they were ever caught. They now face multiple charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. One of the victims of the con lawyer was a record $1.5 billion jackpot winner from South Carolina who snapped up the prize in October. The winner, who remained anonymous, chose a lump sum of $877 784 124, the largest payout to a single winner in US history.

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