PITTSBURGH, PA – Two residents of Santa Ana, California, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy relating to their participation in a scheme to defraud elderly victims in the United States.
The two-count Indictment, returned on April 26, 2022, and unsealed today, named Thien Phuc Tran, 32, and Ton Huynh Bui, 29, both of Santa Ana, CA, as defendants. The brothers-in-law were arrested today in Santa Ana and will make their initial appearances this afternoon in federal court in the Central District of California.
According to the Indictment, from December 2020 to December 2021, Tran and Bui participated in a multi-million-dollar conspiracy to defraud elderly persons residing in the Western District of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. As alleged, members of the conspiracy contacted potential victims on their computers through pop-up messages falsely purporting to be from reputable technology companies, convinced victims that their financial accounts had been compromised and that their funds needed to be moved, and subsequently gained control over the victims’ computers and personal funds. Members of the conspiracy also allegedly used stolen personally identifiable information (PII) from additional unwitting victims to open financial accounts and create email addresses to receive and move the proceeds of the fraud. Conspirators also converted stolen victim funds to cryptocurrency, and moved…
