"You Won a Car": Jamaican Sweepstakes Call Ring Leader Gets Eight Years in New York

The sentence

On September 10, 2026, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) published the announcement by Jamie McDonald, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, part of the Department of Justice (DOJ). Jordan Trought, a citizen of Jamaica, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vincent Briccetti to eight years in prison, three years' supervised release and forfeiture of $6,166,227.

Trought was arrested in Jamaica on August 28, 2025, and extradited to the U.S. on October 22, 2025. In June 2026, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and bank fraud.

How the scheme worked

According to the superseding indictment, the plea agreement and public court filings, as described in the release:

• From at least 2015 through at least 2025, the ring defrauded more than 200 elderly victims of more than $9 million.
• Victims usually got an unsolicited phone call or text from someone using a common name, like "David Miller."
• The caller said they'd won a life-changing amount of money and a luxury car from a well-known marketing and sweepstakes company.
• To collect this, the victims first had to pay "taxes" or "fees" to addresses and bank accounts the caller picked.
• After the first payment, the caller stayed in touch and said more payments were needed.
• Victims sent checks, money orders and cash by mail and made wire, Zelle and Venmo payments.
• The group also took control of some victims' bank accounts and moved money through them.
• Money ended up with associates and at an auto business Trought ran in Jamaica.

Trought joined the ring around March 2021 and became one of the leaders. He's being held responsible for more than $6 million taken from more than 100 victims between March 2021 and his arrest.

IRS-CI and special agents of the U.S. Attorney's Office investigated, with the aid of the U.S. Marshals Service, DOJ's Office of International Affairs and the Jamaican Constabulary Force.

Why it matters

In this case, the hook was an unsolicited call or text, and the follow-up contact is where the money kept coming, one "fee" at a time.

What to take from it:

1. These rings run for years. This one ran from at least 2015 to 2025.
2. A fake common name like "David Miller" plus a famous sweepstakes brand is the standard opener.
3. Extradition from Jamaica happens. Running the calls offshore didn't keep the leader out of a New York courtroom.

If you're carrying calls into the U.S. from overseas and your customer can't tell you what they're for, that's a problem you want to find before investigators do. That's it.