COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. — The Collier County Sheriff’s Office arrested two men in connection to a lottery scam that involved victims throughout the United States.
On May 5, First Florida Integrity Bank alerted detectives in the CCSO Financial Crimes Bureau to suspicious deposits being made into accounts held by Johnson and Taylor.
The deposited funds were also being moved to different bank accounts in their names at other institutions.
Upon further investigation, detectives found that the checks came from elderly individuals, many with some form of thought process or memory deficiency.
Some were approached by unknown persons who initiated the fraud, while others received phone calls from Jamaican area codes.
The scammer told the victim that they had won a large cash prize.
For the victim to receive the prize, they would need to send a check to the scammer so that the scammer could verify the right banking information to deposit the prize money.
The investigation also revealed:
Dillion received a $5,000 cashier’s check on May 4 from an 85-year-old woman in West Virginia and a $1,500 check and a $4,000 check from a 72-year-old woman with a long-term traumatic brain injury in San Francisco. She was befriended by a man at the local grocery store where she works who persuaded her to send over $20,000 in checks to various people, one of whom was Dillion.
Neville received a $1,200 check on January 31 from an 84-year-old woman in Illinois and a $1,700 check on March 23, a $1,500 check on March 30, and a $1,000 check on April 21 from a 95-year-old woman in North Carolina.
The victim told detectives she had no recollection of the checks.
Then Neville received a $500 check and a $4,000 check from an 84-year-old woman in Texas.
Dillion Coral Johnson, 24, and Neville A. Taylor, 26, are each charged with three counts of depositing checks with intent to defraud.
