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Date: Aug. 13, 2024
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
PHILADELPHIA — United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that Ari Tietolman of Montréal, Canada, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, $7,042.898.22 in restitution, and a $700 special assessment by United States District Judge Gerald A. McHugh, all arising from Tietolman’s operation of a massive scheme from Canada that targeted American senior citizens with deceptive telemarketing calls for nearly a decade.
Tietolman was charged in 2017 by superseding indictment with three counts of wire fraud and four counts of money laundering. He was extradited from Canada to the United States in 2023 and pleaded guilty to all seven counts against him in January of this year.
From 2005 to 2014, Tietolman directed his fraud scheme from Montréal, Canada. In this scheme, Tietolman’s network of telemarketers sold worthless or non-existent services and then debited the victims’ bank accounts without their informed consent. Through this scheme, Tietolman and his co-schemers, including codefendants Marc Roy Ferry and Adam Harper, took millions of dollars from tens of thousands of senior citizens in the United States.
Tietolman created a number of fraudulent companies that sold purported fraud protection services, a purported prescription drug discount card, and a purported discounted legal service. The products and services offered by the fraudulent companies were worthless or non-existent.
After Tietolman obtained names and telephone numbers of elderly Americans, he and Harper hired and instructed telemarketers to call these elderly Americans to sell the worthless or non-existent products and services offered by the fraud companies. Most of Tietolman’s telemarketers were based in “boiler rooms” in and around Montréal. In addition, there was at least one “boiler room” in India. Tietolman and Harper called these rooms “fulfillment rooms.”
During their calls, Tietolman’s telemarketers made various misrepresentations, such as stating that they were calling on behalf of, or were affiliated with, the victim’s bank, the victim’s insurance company, or the United States government. In addition, Tietolman’s telemarketers often misled the consumers about the need for these products and services.
In addition to misrepresenting the value of the products being marketed, Tietolman’s telemarketers also misrepresented the cost of these products, sometimes telling consumers the products were free, or less expensive than the amount that was ultimately debited from the consumers’ bank accounts. In other instances, the telemarketers assured consumers they would not debit the consumers’ bank accounts and then did just that after the consumer provided their bank account information.
As part of his fraud, Tietolman took extensive efforts to conceal his involvement, using front companies, nominees, remotely created checks (“RCCs”), and structured deposits. Furthermore, when the fraud was detected but before a bank account was closed, Tietolman would sometimes instruct his co-schemer Ferry to “hammer” the account, that is, deposit as many checks as possible before the account was closed. Finally, knowing that banks would close accounts used to facilitate fraud, Tietolman caused his co-schemers to open accounts at several banks in the United States simultaneously, to make sure that the scheme kept running even when one or more accounts were frozen or closed.
Codefendants Marc Roy Ferry and Adam Harper previously entered their guilty pleas in the case and are also awaiting sentencing. Both Ferry and Harper have been released on bail conditions.
“Ari Tietolman directed an almost decade-long scheme that scammed seniors out of millions of their hard-earned dollars,” said U.S. Attorney Romero. “Specifically targeting the elderly because you consider them easy prey is deplorable. My office and our partners at the FBI and IRS-CI are determined to hold criminals like Tietolman accountable and protect older folks from these callous crooks seeking to take advantage of them.”
“For nearly a decade, Ari Tietolman scammed senior citizens across the country out of their life’s savings, even stooping so low as to sell his victims purported services that would protect them from fraud,” said Wayne A. Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Philadelphia. “As this sentencing shows, we at the FBI and our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and IRS Criminal Investigation will pursue justice no matter where or when federal crimes occur.”
The case was investigated the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS CI) and by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Vineet Gauri and Eric D. Gill. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with law enforcement partners in Canada to secure the arrest and extradition of Tietolman to the United States.
CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
