Arrest made in scam that duped elderly Palatine man of almost $4.5 million

Oct. 07--The elderly Palatine man had already been duped out of millions of dollars through an elaborate foreign lottery scam by the time the woman he knew as "Lisa Conti" made her most recent demand, federal prosecutors say.

Conti, who purported to be a government official, offered to fly the 87-year-old man to New York so he could deliver a cashier's check for more than $3.7 million -- the latest payment on an insurance policy that would protect his sweepstakes winnings being held in his name overseas, according to prosecutors.

She bought him a ticket and told him she was going to put him up at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan. On Tuesday, the woman went to meet her victim at LaGuardia Airport, wearing a peach-colored dress so he could easily recognize her.

But what Conti didn't know was that the FBI was on to the scam and had been working with the man for months. When her phone rang as she stood in the baggage claim area, an FBI agent called out, "Lisa." She turned to look and the agent arrested her.

Conti, whose real name is Corrine Dziesiuta, was charged Wednesday in a criminal complaint unsealed in Chicago detailing the bizarre scheme that allegedly bilked the elderly man out of nearly $4.5 million over a six-year period, persuading him to wire funds from his U.S. bank accounts to banking institutions in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Dziesiuta, 38, appeared in federal court Thursday in Brooklyn and was ordered held without bail pending her transfer back to Chicago, court records show.

According to the nine-page complaint, the man, identified only as Victim A, was first contacted by Dziesiuta in 2010 and told he'd won millions in prize money but needed to pay "various insurance, taxes and other fees to various entities" because it was located in a foreign country.

To keep the scam going, Dziesiuta sent a letter to the man in January 2015 purporting to be from a U.S. senator who provided assurances that the government was working to protect his interests. The letter also stated the man was required by law to pay $386,000 to "re-register" an insurance policy meant to protect his net worth of $600 million, according to the complaint.

The charges do not elaborate when or how the FBI became aware of the scam. But between May and late September, agents recorded 27 phone calls between the man and Dziesiuta, including one in which the man was instructed to tell her his bank would no longer allow him to wire funds, according to the complaint.

After Dziesiuta tried to persuade Victim A to switch banks or go through an attorney to send the money, the man -- at the direction of agents -- told her he was only willing to give her money in person. In August, Dziesiuta told the man she was going to travel to Palatine to pick up the money herself. But she later said she'd been "hit by a cab in Times Square which required her to cancel her plans," according to the complaint.

Later that month, the man received a letter sent from Costa Rica, telling him he owed the $3.7 million payment in 30 days, according to the complaint. In a subsequent phone call, Dziesiuta told the man she'd make the arrangements to fly him to New York so he could deliver a cashier's check in person.

Public records show Dziesiuta previously lived in Trenton, N.J., where she was a licensed cosmetologist.

After her arrest, Dziesiuta told agents she became involved with organizers of the fraud after moving to Costa Rica with her husband and children in 2010, according to the complaint.

She began as an "opener," cold-calling potential victims who had been previously mailed a claim that they'd won a sweepstakes of some kind. As she gained experience, her role shifted to making "comfort" calls to victims who had been badgered for money, trying to "smooth things over" so they would stay on the hook and send more money.

When shown some of the documents that had been sent to Victim A over the years, Dziesiuta told agents she had "worked on their wording using a thesaurus to make them sound complicated," the complaint alleged. Dziesiuta said she started out making $100 a week but for the past couple of years had been earning 10 percent of whatever funds she persuaded her victims to transfer.

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