More than 7 million elderly Americans had names, phone numbers, addresses and email addresses sold to overseas scammers, a criminal scheme that has now resulted in more than a decade behind bars for the man prosecutors say ran it.
Troy Murray, the "Steve Dixon" alias, and the guilty plea
Fifty-seven‑year‑old Troy Murray — who operated under the pseudonym "Steve Dixon" — pleaded guilty in January 2026 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors told a court this week that Murray's alias was so widely recognized among Jamaican scammers that it was even referenced in a 2022 song lyric by a Jamaican musical artist. On Thursday he was sentenced to 121 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and was ordered to forfeit $5,2 million.
How the scheme worked: lead lists and payment methods
Court documents lay out a years‑long marketplace in which Murray sold "lead lists" containing names, phone numbers, physical addresses, and email addresses of elderly Americans to scammers in Jamaica and elsewhere. According to prosecutors, the buyers used the lists to carry out lottery fraud against elderly targets. Murray typically charged $500 per list of 100 to 300 names and — after the wire transmission services he used blocked him from their platforms — instructed clients to pay him with prepaid gift cards instead.
Scale, revenue and the flow of illicit funds
Prosecutors say Murray sent at least 22,000 lead lists between 2016 and 2023, generating more than $5.2 million for himself and causing victim losses exceeding $9.5 million. The scheme reportedly provided Murray with hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. The illegal proceeds were used to buy farm equipment, vehicles, and precious metal collectibles; prosecutors also say Murray sent some of the funds to his son, Cutter Murray, to cover personal and business expenses. In June 2025 the Justice Department revealed Cutter Murray will plead guilty to one count of money laundering for receiving and laundering $1.6 million of the fraudulent funds.
Impact on elderly Americans and national fraud trends
Murray's sentence arrives amid a broader surge in elder fraud. The FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report shows that Americans aged 60 and older filed over 200,000 fraud complaints last year — a 37% increase over 2024. Affected elderly victims reported total losses of nearly $7.8 billion, a 59% year‑over‑year rise, with the average loss per complainant reaching $38,500.
What this means for victims, investigators, and payment platforms
- Victims and families: The scale of the data sales in this case — lists sold in bulk, reused by multiple fraudsters — helps explain why individual elderly victims report large losses and sustained follow‑on contact. The record in court documents ties the resale of harvested personal data to concrete financial harm in the form of lottery fraud.
- Law enforcement and prosecutors: The case demonstrates prosecutors can trace marketplaces in personal data and follow illicit proceeds through purchases and transfers. The coordinated guilty plea and sentence, plus the related money‑laundering plea by the son, show a multipronged approach: charging the supplier of data, and charging those who move and spend the proceeds.
- Payment platforms and intermediaries: The prosecution notes that familiar wire transmission services blocked Murray, after which he shifted to prepaid gift cards. That adaptation underscores how fraud actors move between payment channels when one is cut off, a pattern prosecutors flagged in their filings.
Murray's conviction closes a chapter in a long‑running scheme, but the figures from the FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report in the same release suggest the problem remains large and active. The sentence — 121 months, forfeiture and supervised release — is a concrete enforcement result tied to a disturbing commercial market in the personal data of elderly Americans. How regulators, platforms and law enforcement coordinate to disrupt the resale of such lists will determine whether similar operations can be halted before they inflict more losses.
