A man accused of running a Publishers Clearing House lottery scam from Jamaica and Panama has been extradited to the United States to face a 29-count federal indictment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced on October 30, 2026, that Ashanie M. Campbell, 29, of Panama City, Panama and Jamaica, was extradited from Panama this week. He is charged alongside Jeremie L. Cotton, 38, of Las Vegas, Nevada, who, prosecutors say, had already appeared on the charges after his arrest in December 2025. Everything in the indictment is an allegation: both men are presumed innocent unless and until they are found guilty in court, and that warning is stated in the Justice Department's own announcement.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Oct 30, 2026
According to U.S. Attorney Brian D. Miller, Campbell and Cotton are each charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. Campbell faces additional charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and interstate transportation of property taken by fraud. The extradition was assisted by the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs, and the case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service with help from the U.S. Marshals Service Harrisburg Resident Agency. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ravi Romel Sharma is prosecuting.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Oct 30, 2026
How the alleged scam worked, according to the indictment
The indictment alleges that the scheme was a classic lottery scam dressed in a famous name. Fraudsters, it says, contacted people in the United States by phone and email pretending to represent Publishers Clearing House, the well-known sweepstakes company, and told them they had won large cash prizes. Victims were allegedly told that to claim their winnings they first had to prepay expenses such as taxes and administrative fees. Once a victim sent money, the indictment says, they were told that additional fees were due, and were pressed for larger and larger payments — the escalating-fee pattern that postal inspectors say is the signature of prize scams. Campbell, the indictment alleges, lived in Jamaica in 2020, travelled to Panama around May 2021, and had access to and used a Google account, PCH8501@gmail.com, in connection with the scheme.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Oct 30, 2026
The indictment names five specific alleged victims. The first, identified only as Victim 1, was approximately 75 years old in 2020 and lived in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, in the Middle District of Pennsylvania — the detail that anchors this Harrisburg prosecution. Victim 1 was allegedly told he had won large cash prizes from Publishers Clearing House, and that he had also won a Land Rover. No victim is named in the announcement, and this report does not name any victim either.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Oct 30, 2026
The Land Rover that was shipped to Jamaica
The strangest allegation in the indictment concerns that promised Land Rover. Prosecutors allege that co-conspirators in the United States purchased a salvage Land Rover and repaired it using parts that Victim 1 himself shipped to them. Around October 2020, the indictment says, the repaired vehicle was shipped from an auto body shop in Queens, New York, to a car dealership in Kingston, Jamaica, where it came into the possession of Campbell in Jamaica. In other words, on the government's allegations, the elderly Pennsylvania man who was told he had won a vehicle ended up supplying parts for a vehicle that was then sent to the man accused of scamming him. Cotton's alleged role was on the money side: the indictment describes him as a U.S.-based intermediary Campbell used to receive fraud-derived money transfers from victims, with money then allegedly moving on from Cotton's account to Campbell's associates, including a bank account in Panama belonging to a contact of Campbell.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Oct 30, 2026
No legitimate lottery or sweepstakes makes a winner pay taxes, fees or administrative charges upfront to collect a prize. Christopher Nielsen, Inspector in Charge of the Postal Inspection Service's Philadelphia Division, said it directly in this case: "We urge anyone told to pay taxes or fees upfront to collect a prize to stop and verify the claim before sending money." If the prize requires a payment first, there is no prize.
"Lottery scams exploit the hope of a life-changing prize and can leave victims facing devastating financial losses," Nielsen said. "This extradition reflects our commitment to pursuing those accused of defrauding Americans, wherever they may be, and the importance of working with our law enforcement partners to bring them before a court."
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Oct 30, 2026
The elder-fraud background: why prosecutors chase these cases across borders
This indictment lands inside a much larger enforcement picture. The Justice Department's annual report to Congress on elder fraud and abuse, published in October 2026, says the department pursued nearly 350 criminal and civil enforcement actions against 712 defendants who were charged with stealing, or alleged to have stolen, more than $4.8 billion from more than 700,000 victims. Prize and lottery scams aimed at older Americans are a recurring part of that caseload, because the method is cheap to run from abroad, the scripts are reusable, and a single convinced victim can be milked repeatedly — exactly the escalating pattern the Campbell indictment alleges, in which each payment was allegedly followed by a demand for a larger one.
Why this matters for diaspora families in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is home to a large Punjabi and wider South Asian community, in and around Harrisburg, Mechanicsburg and the Philadelphia suburbs, and in many of those households an elderly parent or grandparent is the person who answers the phone and opens the mail during the day. A scam call that begins "you have won" in English, made to a senior who may not want to trouble their working children with a confusing call, is aimed at exactly that moment. The defence is a family rule, agreed in advance and repeated often: nobody in the house ever sends money, gift cards or bank details to claim a prize, report a problem with a computer, or release a parcel — and any such call gets hung up on and checked with a family member first. The Postal Inspection Service's advice in this very case is the same: stop, and verify before sending anything.
What happens next, and what the charges could carry
Campbell now faces proceedings in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, where the indictment was filed; Cotton has already begun his, after his December 2025 arrest. The maximum federal penalty for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, mail fraud and wire fraud is 20 years in prison on each count, with a possible additional term of up to 10 years on the fraud counts if the government proves the offence victimised ten or more people over the age of 55, or targeted people over 55. Interstate transportation of property taken by fraud carries a maximum of 10 years. Any actual sentence would be set by the judge after a conviction, under the federal sentencing statutes and guidelines, and could include supervised release and a fine. Until a court decides, the charges remain what the Justice Department itself calls them: allegations.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Oct 30, 2026