The government says Zhao Wang was the leader of a multinational criminal scheme that defrauded more than 2,000 elderly Americans into sending money through the mail.
(CN) – A Chinese national was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in leading a multi-million dollar scam targeting elderly Americans.
U.S. District Judge Robert S. Huie, a Joe Biden appointee, sentenced Zhao Wang, 41, also known as “Oscar,” to 151 months in prison for his role in overseeing a multinational fraud and money laundering scheme that defrauded more than 2,000 senior Americans of more than $2,023.
According to the governmentWang led a conspiracy that operated a variety of tech support, bank impersonations, government impersonations, and refund scams to extort money from unsuspecting victims.
Members of the scheme would use phone calls, emails and advertisements to contact potential victims, instructing them to call a specific phone number belonging to an India-based call center to orchestrate their scam, according to prosecutors. They also used remote desktop software to access victims’ computers.
Prosecutors say the most common scam in the conspiracy was the refund scam, where victims were told they were entitled to a small refund for a specific charge, then told they had been “over-reimbursed” and instructed to send the over-reimbursed money back via wire transfer or cash through the mail to locations in Southern California and Nevada.
In reality, the refunds were fake and the victims were given fake names and addresses to send their packages to. Wang and his accomplices then used fake IDs that matched the fake identities to get the packages. Individuals receiving the packages would send photos and videos of them counting the money to Wang, with each package containing an average of $14,000.
Wang and his American co-conspirators received more than 18% of the money they stole, transferring the rest via cryptocurrency to their India-based broker.
“This sentence recognizes the profound human cost of exploiting the trust and treating vulnerable people as opportunities for profit,” US Attorney Adam Gordon said in a press release.
Wang was arrested in 2024 and was charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments along with four co-defendants who were also part of the scheme. He initially pleaded not guilty before reversing course and pleading guilty in January 2026.
According to the government, as part of his plea agreement, Wang admitted that he obtained false IDs and “coordinated and supervised criminal activities and recruited individuals, including his co-defendants, to work on his behalf.” Wang was the first of the five defendants to plead guilty and cooperated with the government throughout the process, his lawyers wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
The government looking close to 20 years for Wang because of his prominent role in the scheme. During the sentencing Friday, the government said it emphasized to Wang that it was “obvious” that the plot was aimed at extorting money from elderly Americans, citing a phone conversation from February 2022 in which Wang said: “It’s basically a scam aimed at elderly Americans. They trick you into believing you have to send me a package. It’s filled with cash).
Wang, a first-time offender, asked the court for a sentence that was no more than necessary, citing his cooperation, his scheduled deportation after his sentence is completed and his family, including a wife and 2-year-old son.
In Wang sentencing memorandumhis lawyer Yuan Li of the Demidchik Law Firm argued that the government’s characterization of Wang’s role as mastermind and mastermind of the scheme was a “dramatic overstatement,” alleging that the plot was “designed, directed, and controlled by syndicates based in India.”
Li said Indian fraud centers and middlemen were the ones who designed the scam, operated the call centers, contacted the victims and received nearly 80% of the money made in the scheme. She further argued that Wang’s group did not know the full extent of the plot, characterizing Wang as an “independent contractor performing a discrete logistics task, not that of a leader running a transnational enterprise.”
At the sentencing hearing, Huie called the scope of the fraud “absurd” and the inner workings of Wang’s scheme “100% reprehensible,” according to the government.
The judge further highlighted Wang’s deliberate targeting of senior citizens, saying: “Their vulnerability was not accidental. It was not accidental. It was the way they were chosen. It was the way they were deceived.”
A representative for Wang did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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