{"id":666869,"date":"2026-05-13T14:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/666869\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T14:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:50:14","slug":"montreal-grandparent-scammer-spent-victims-money-on-cocaine-cars-and-parties-court-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/666869\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal grandparent scammer spent victims’ money on cocaine, cars and parties: court documents"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Canadian man sentenced last week for his role in a grandparent scam lived a lavish beachfront lifestyle, drove a Porsche and bought cocaine using money stolen from vulnerable seniors, according to the U.S. prosecutors who put him in prison.<\/p>\n

Sentencing documents filed in U.S. court say that Stefano Zanetti, 44, operated \u2014 or appeared to operate \u2014 a successful watersports rental company in Panama while he co-ordinated a multimillion-dollar fraud operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn reality, Zanetti was the lynchpin in an international conspiracy designed to systematically steal money from elderly victims in the United States,\u201d Jeffrey R. Bengel, assistant U.S. attorney, wrote in a sentencing memorandum.<\/p>\n

\u201cZanetti lived large on the proceeds of his crimes for years \u2014 enjoying beachfront property, driving a Porsche, owning boats and jet skis, and buying cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sentencing documents filed in Zanetti\u2019s case \u2014 and in several other cases of men accused alongside him \u2014 show how the network co-ordinated money pickups from elderly victims across the U.S. on behalf of the scammers based in Montreal.<\/p>\n

All the while, the documents show, the men posed as successful businessmen.<\/p>\n

Their cases echo that of Gareth West<\/a>, Zanetti\u2019s alleged partner, who prosecutors call the \u201ckingpin\u201d of the scam network. West presented himself as a wealthy real estate developer and fitness influencer while prosecutors say he was earning millions from scamming the elderly.<\/p>\n

\"manZanetti at the wheel of a Porsche in a message sent to one of his underlings. (U.S. Department of Justice)<\/p>\n

In Zanetti\u2019s case, he ran Luxury Water Sports, a popular jet ski rental company located in Buenaventura, a resort town on Panama\u2019s Pacific coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On its Instagram page, Zanetti posed atop jet skis and smiled alongside customers. The company was popular. Clients rated it highly and tourists posted pictures of themselves on the company\u2019s rental yacht.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zanetti sent pictures of himself at the wheel of a Porsche to his underlings, men hired to collect money from scam victims across the U.S. Pictures also show him sitting beachside, likely beneath the parasols and palm trees of the Buenaventura resort.<\/p>\n

Undeterred despite bail bondsmen arrests<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his \u201ccrews\u201d \u2014 groups of three men \u2014 were visiting American cities, renting cars, hotel rooms and acting as \u201cbail bondsmen\u201d to collect money from victims who had been scammed into giving up thousands of dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zanetti was the go-between between the scammers located in the call centres in Montreal and the \u201cbail bondsmen\u201d who collected the money.<\/p>\n

Victims of the scam have told CBC how the scam affected their mental health, making them feel vulnerable in old age in addition to, in some cases, robbing them of vital life savings or retirement funds.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the \u201cbail bondsmen\u201d would get arrested \u2014 it happened 10 times while Zanetti was co-ordinating the money pickups. But he remained undeterred. According to the U.S. prosecutors, he thought he was safe from law enforcement because he was in Panama.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zanetti was convicted of being involved in the scam activity beginning in September 2021, but the prosecutors say the evidence suggests he was involved in grandparent scams going back at least to 2019 and, at one point, he himself was scamming seniors out of call centres in Montreal, acting as a \u201ccloser.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"manZanetti sent pictures like this one, showing him on a beach, to the men who worked for him. (U.S. Department of Justice)<\/p>\n

For years, the scam earned millions, but some of Zanetti\u2019s \u201cbail bondsmen\u201d were arrested, including Roderick Feurtado, who also posed as a successful businessman with a \u201cmultimillion-dollar income,\u201d according to prosecutors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFeurtado has constructed a persona for himself \u2014 Mr. Worldwide, the globetrotting cryptocurrency tycoon and multimillion-dollar earner,\u201d Bengel wrote in sentencing documents in Feurtado\u2019s case. \u201cIn reality, he is a fraudster who travelled to Pittsburgh to steal money from the elderly.\u201d<\/p>\n

When police arrested Feurtado and two other men in Pittsburgh, they caught them with more than $200,000 US in cash taken from victims \u2014 money believed to have been gathered over just three days, which prosecutors said showed the scale of the fraud.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The arrests set off alarm bells among the rest of the scammers \u2014 the prosecutors say West was concerned and visited Zanetti in Panama to discuss the operation. A photo from West\u2019s Instagram account at the time shows him riding in a small plane with Zanetti.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"menA picture from Gareth West’s Instagram account, filed in U.S. court documents, shows West, left, and Zanetti, centre, aboard a small plane. (U.S. Department of Justice)Hefty sentences<\/p>\n

The network continued to operate. Two years later, Zanetti was arrested and extradited to the U.S. While in custody, before he pleaded guilty, U.S. investigators say Zanetti told a cellmate that he was in touch with people back in Canada who were \u201ctrying to buy his silence for $2 million.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a sentencing submission of his own after his guilty plea, Zanetti expressed remorse for his actions and requested a 120-month sentence \u2014 much lower than what U.S. sentencing guidelines would have imposed on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His son filed a letter with the court asking for lenience for his father. In the letter, he says Zanetti cared for his aging parents and taught him how to be a man of integrity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By contrast, Bengel, the U.S. prosecutor, said Zanetti had full knowledge of the vulnerability of the victims targeted by the scam.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe victims in this case lost hard-earned money, which they planned to rely on in retirement or gift to their grandchildren, so that Zanetti could party, ride jet skis, live near the ocean, and drive a sports car,\u201d Bengel wrote.<\/p>\n

The judge, Nicholas Ranjan, agreed with Bengel and imposed a 188-month \u2014 or 15-and-a-half-year \u2014 sentence, the upper limit of the sentencing guidelines and in line with what Bengel had requested. He also ordered more than $700,000 US in restitution.<\/p>\n

For his part, Feurtado, the man who posed as a bail bondsmen, also received a hefty sentence of 146 months in 2024 \u2014 more than the prosecution had asked for \u2014 despite him telling his probation officer that he planned to \u201cask congress to establish a \u2018Grandpa Protection Program,\u2019 which would be a program\/system to help prevent elderly people from being duped by [grandparent scams].\u201d<\/p>\n

He now writes religious books and sells them on Amazon \u2014 from prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canadian man sentenced last week for his role in a grandparent scam lived a lavish beachfront lifestyle,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-666869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}