New Yorker sentenced after bilking Kentucky resident in 'grandparent scam'

A man in New York City tricked an older Kentucky victim out of $59,000 by pretending the victim's grandson urgently needed money, part of a national phone-based "grandparent scam" trend.

Juan Carlos Arcena Cabrera pleaded guilty earlier this year to scamming several victims for years. Earlier this month, a U.S. District Court judge in Louisville sentenced him to serve two years and two months in federal prison, where parole is not an option.

Cabrera admitted convincing the victim in Brandenburg, 42 miles southwest of Louisville in Meade County, to send cash shipments, including $10,000 in a package mailed to a New York City Fed-Ex store, according to his plea agreement.

Officials have noticed a trend of similar cases targeting grandparents, with federal prosecutions in recent cases from California to New Jersey. Many of the scams originate overseas, and some scammers have figured out how to clone the grandchild's voice, making the call for help seem authentic.

Michael Bennett, the U.S. Attorney General for the Western District of Kentucky, has a team of prosecutors dedicated to handling these scams, as well as other crimes against senior citizens, as part of the Kentucky Elder Justice Task Force. Along with prosecutors, the task force includes investigators and others at the local, state and federal level.

Efforts across the nation to better protect seniors started years ago and include a national task force that aided Kentucky prosecutors.

At an Elder Justice Coordinating Council meeting in Washington, D.C., in 2022, then-Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said: "The Justice Department has focused much of our elder justice enforcement on transnational schemes, which comprised nearly 40% of our cases in the past year.

"Our whole-of-government approach has been critical to detecting and disrupting these schemes, which include grandparent scams, romance fraud, identity theft and lottery fraud."

In grandparent scams, callers typically ask seniors to wire money or mail cash in packages, but some scammers have come to the victim's house to pick up the money.

In the Cabrera case, he teamed with others to target seniors in Kentucky and elsewhere, convincing them a grandchild or other family member had an emergency, such as a car accident or legal trouble and urgently needed money.

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"The ruse typically involved a fabricated automobile accident or other legal trouble, supposedly triggering the need for bond money or other emergency funds," according to the indictment. "Once ensnared into believing their loved one was in trouble, callers would target the same victims again, posing as attorneys or other professionals" claiming the loved one needed more money urgently.

The judge, according to the judgment document, ordered Cabrera to remain on supervised probation for two years after he is released from prison.

Federal prosecutors in Louisville also secured convictions against several other scammers, including Christopher Courcoulacos, 46, a Canadian citizen. He lived in Panama while supervising grandparent scams targeting Kentuckians and other Americans. A judge sentenced him in November to serve six years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

The Federal Communications Commission offers tips on its website to avoid being scammed, as well as a method to report scammers.

Also, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has a page dedicated to explaining and preventing these crimes against the elderly. Go to uspis.gov and enter "grandparent scam" in the search field.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: New Yorker sentenced after bilking Kentucky resident in 'grandparent scam'