Alleged Losses in Justice Department Elder Fraud Cases Doubled to $4.8 Billion in a Year as Foreign Schemes Grew, Annual Report Shows

Federal elder fraud cases pursued over the past year involved more than twice the alleged losses of the year before, according to the Justice Department's annual report to Congress on elder fraud and abuse, released Wednesday by its Civil Division.

The report says the department pursued 341 criminal and civil enforcement actions from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, involving conduct that targeted or disproportionately affected older adults. Those cases named 712 defendants "charged with stealing or alleged to have stolen" $4,841,305,931 from 711,353 victims. The report notes that an indictment is only an allegation and that all defendants are presumed innocent.

What the Elder Fraud Report Counts

The Digital Free Press compared the new figures with the department's 2025 report, which covered July 2024 through June 2025. That report listed 283 enforcement actions naming 608 defendants accused of taking $2,363,983,480 from 1,034,630 victims.

That means the number of cases rose by about 20%, the number of defendants by 17% and the alleged dollar losses by about 105%, while the number of victims counted fell by about 31%. The report does not explain the change in the victim count.

The share of cases involving international schemes rose from 36% to 45%. About 96% of this year's cases were criminal, compared with 95% the year before, and 78% of U.S. attorney's offices brought at least one elder justice case in both years.

In an opening statement, Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote that the administration "has prioritized combating the scourge of fraud," naming investment fraud, tech support fraud, romance scams and government impersonation scams. He wrote that working with law enforcement in India allowed the FBI in 2024 to conduct hundreds of interviews that led to 215 arrests tied to tech support and government impersonation schemes.

Frozen Funds and a Lead-List Broker

The report also shows the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center Recovery Asset Team handled 642 incidents involving victims 60 and older, with $65,367,648 in reported losses, and froze $32,865,655, a 50% success rate. The 2025 report listed 370 incidents, $38,331,059 in losses and $21,433,130 frozen, a 56% rate.

Among the cases the report highlights is that of Troy Murray, prosecuted by the Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida. According to the report, Murray sold at least 22,000 "lead lists" to Jamaican lottery and sweepstakes scammers, drawn from a database of more than 7 million Americans over 65, and earned more than $5.2 million. He was sentenced on May 28, 2026, to 121 months in prison.

The department reported nearly 1,200 public awareness and training events reaching more than 62 million Americans, up from nearly 15 million reached a year earlier. Victims of Crime Act-funded groups allocated $52 million specifically to serve victims of elder abuse, the report says.

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, "Annual Report to Congress on Department of Justice Activities to Combat Elder Fraud and Abuse," October 2026 (https://www.justice.gov/elderjustice/media/1466131/dl?inline); Department of Justice press release, "Justice Department Releases Eighth Annual Elder Justice Report," Oct. 28, 2026 (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-releases-eighth-annual-elder-justice-report); Department of Justice, 2025 Annual Report to Congress on elder fraud and abuse (https://www.justice.gov/elderjustice/media/1416301/dl?inline); Cover photo: Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building (Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons).