Guilty plea in international sweepstakes scam targeting Northern California victims

“Stan Peterson” was on the phone, and he had some good news: the recipient of the call had won the lottery.

All they needed to do, “Peterson” said, was send in a check to cover the insurance, and their millions would be delivered to their door.

The rest of this story is not a mystery.

“The victims never received any prize money,” court papers filed in Sacramento federal court note dryly.

The victims were older, all above 55 and considered susceptible to the age-old lotto scam, and between August 2012 and January 2018 more than 30 people fell prey to “Stan Peterson” and other callers, coughing up more than $8 million, court papers say.

On Thursday, in federal court in Sacramento, one of the conspirators in a fraud that prosecutors say involved others in the United Kingdom Canada, Cyprus, Singapore, Colombia and Nigeria pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Alexander Franco Gutierrez, 43, who split his time between Toronto and Medellin, Colombia, during the fraud, accepted a plea agreement that could net him up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

“Mr. Gutierrez regrets the conduct and is remorseful,” said Sacramento attorney Tom Johnson, who represents him. “He was held in a Colombian jail for two years and looks forward to concluding this.”

The plea agreement documents do not reflect whether Gutierrez is cooperating with federal prosecutors as part of the plea deal.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christina McCall filed a request Tuesday to file an addendum to the plea deal document under seal.

Gutierrez originally was arrested in Medellin, Colombia, in 2018 and currently is being held at the Nevada County Jail.

He and his alleged co-conspirators were charged in a 41-count indictment in 2018 by federal prosecutors in Sacramento who say there was no “Stan Peterson,” that the name was simply one of dozens of aliases the fraudsters made up as they called their intended victims.

“Evidence in this case shows that Gutierrez and his partners have been perpetrating lottery schemes since approximately 1999,” court papers say. “However, due to statute of limitations issues and difficulty in obtaining records from that time period, the focus of this investigation did not cover the activities between approximately 1999-2021.”

Prosecutors say Gutierrez obtained phone numbers and addresses of mostly older residents of Northern California and elsewhere from a suspect identified in court papers as “Co-conspirator A.”

“The scheme typically worked as follows: elderly victims were notified by mail or telephone that they had won a sweepstakes or lottery,” court papers say. “They were told that they had to pay taxes or insurance fees before they could receive their winnings.

“The victims were often told not to tell anyone about the prize winnings, and were told to sign non-disclosure agreements that the co-conspirators provided.”

One victim was told she had won $1 million from a sweepstakes affiliated with the Coca-Cola Co., court papers say, and was rebuffed by one of the conspirators who went “ballistic” when she told her son the good news, court papers say.

Another woman was told she had won $7.4 million that would be hand-delivered to home on a Friday, court papers say.

Naturally, Friday came and went without any money arriving.

Sentencing for Gutierrez is set for July 22, and he was ordered by U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley to remain in custody.