A North Carolina man has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for selling the personal information of over 7 million elderly Americans to scammers based in Jamaica.
Troy Murray, 57, who used the alias “Steve Dixon,” pleaded guilty in January 2026 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. On Thursday, he was sentenced to 121 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to forfeit $5.2 million.
According to prosecutors, Murray’s alias became widely known among Jamaican scammers and was even mentioned in a 2022 song lyric by a Jamaican musical artist.
Court documents show that between 2016 and 2023, Murray sold lead lists containing names, phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses of elderly Americans. The lists were bought by scammers in Jamaica and other locations, who used the information to target victims in lottery fraud schemes.
Murray reportedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars each year by selling the lists, usually charging around $500 for 100 to 300 names. When wire transfer services blocked him from using their platforms, he told buyers to pay him with prepaid gift cards instead.
Prosecutors said Murray sent at least 22,000 lead lists during the scheme. The operation helped him make more than $5.2 million and caused losses of over $9.5 million to victims.
Authorities said Murray used the illegal money to buy farm equipment, vehicles, and precious metal collectibles. He also sent some of the funds to his son, Cutter Murray, for personal and business expenses.
In June 2025, the Justice Department said Cutter Murray would plead guilty to one count of money laundering after receiving and laundering $1.6 million from the fraudulent funds.
Murray’s sentencing comes as elder fraud continues to rise across the United States. According to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, Americans aged 60 and older filed more than 200,000 fraud complaints last year, a 37% increase compared to 2024.
Reported losses among elderly victims reached nearly $7.8 billion, up 59% year-over-year. The average loss per complainant was around $38,500.
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This week, the U.S. Justice Department also filed insider trading charges against a Google security engineer, accusing him of using confidential company information to place bets on the cryptocurrency-based prediction market Polymarket.
