Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has charged a 75-year-old Cook County man with stealing more than $100,000 from elderly victims across the United States in a fake Publisher's Clearing House prize scheme. Frank Zarnay, of Hometown, a small city in southwestern Cook County outside Chicago, faces 20 felony counts of theft and mail fraud in Cook County Circuit Court, Raoul's office announced.
Source: Illinois Attorney General's office
Prosecutors allege Zarnay was part of a scheme that notified victims they had won a Publisher's Clearing House prize worth millions of dollars — and then told them they first had to send money to Zarnay himself in order to claim their winnings. No such prize existed, the Attorney General's office says; the money victims sent was, according to the charges, simply stolen.
Source: Illinois Attorney General's office
The total allegedly taken exceeds $100,000, taken from seniors in different parts of the country who were contacted by members of the group, according to the Attorney General and reporting by Chicago's WBBM News Radio. Hometown, where Zarnay lives, is a largely residential community of a few thousand people in the Chicago metropolitan area — a reminder that the person collecting money in a nationwide scam can be an ordinary neighbour in an ordinary suburb.
Source: WBBM News Radio, Chicago
20 felony counts, with prison terms of up to 15 years on the most serious charge
The charging document filed by Raoul's office lists one count of Class 1 felony theft, punishable by up to 15 years in prison; nine counts of Class 2 felony theft, each punishable by up to seven years; two counts of Class 3 felony theft, each punishable by up to five years; one count of Class 4 felony attempted theft, punishable by up to three years; and seven counts of Class 3 felony mail fraud, each punishable by up to five years. The Attorney General's office notes that sentences are ultimately determined by the court.
Source: Illinois Attorney General's office
"The defendant targeted elderly victims with promises of financial security and then scammed them out of thousands of dollars," Raoul said in the announcement. "My office will continue to work to hold scammers accountable and protect seniors from exploitation."
Source: Illinois Attorney General's office
The case was investigated by the Attorney General's own office, and Deputy Bureau Chief Megan McGuire Bachman is prosecuting it for Raoul. The announcement does not say whether other members of the alleged scheme have been charged, or how many victims in total sent money; those details may emerge as the Cook County case proceeds.
Source: Illinois Attorney General's office
Why the Publisher's Clearing House scam works — and the one rule that defeats it
Police departments across the United States regularly warn about exactly this script. In the classic version, the victim gets a call, text or email saying they have won an exorbitant amount of money in the Publisher's Clearing House lottery — often a lottery they never entered — and is told the prize can only be released after they pay "taxes" or "processing fees," typically thousands of dollars sent by wire transfer, cashier's cheque, gift cards, Venmo or PayPal. Victims are often told not to tell friends or relatives because the win is meant to be a "surprise."
Source: Lake Lure Police Department scam alert
The defence against it is a single sentence, repeated in police alerts nationwide: if you have to pay money to get money, it is a scam. The real Publisher's Clearing House never asks winners to pay to receive a prize. Pressure to pay immediately is itself a red flag — a genuine prize can always wait while you check with family or with the police.
Source: Lake Lure Police Department scam alert
Tell the seniors in your family: (1) No real prize ever requires an upfront fee, tax payment or gift cards. (2) Never send money because a caller says you won something you did not enter. (3) Secrecy is part of the trap — a caller who says "don't tell your family" is confessing. (4) Hang up and check with a family member or local police first.
The case has a direct lesson for the Chicago area's large Punjabi and South Asian community, where many elderly parents and grandparents live with their children or alone during the day while family members are at work — including the long hours many in the community spend on the road as truck drivers. Scammers time their calls for exactly those quiet daytime hours, and a five-minute family conversation about this one rule — never pay to claim a prize — is the cheapest protection there is.
What happens next: Zarnay's next court date is scheduled for December 14 in Cook County Circuit Court. The charges are allegations: the Attorney General's office itself reminds the public that the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and any sentence, if there is a conviction, will be determined by the court.