Five people were arrested in connection with an organized scheme that defrauded dozens of seniors across Philadelphia, according to District Attorney Larry Krasner.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, May 21, Krasner announced multiple charges against Detoine Davis, Winston Haynes, Michael Turner, Anthony Ringgold and Mark Chappell after he said they defrauded at least 35 seniors of more than $500,000 in Northwest and Southwest Philadelphia since June 2024. <\/p>\n
Officials said they believe there may be more than 150 victims.<\/p>\n
“A pretty outrageous, despicable victimization of a large number of seniors,” Krasner said.<\/p>\n
Gillian Dagress, Assistant District Attorney in the Elder Justice Unit, said the suspects would start by contacting older adults, impersonating as a representative from a financial institution or a public utility such as PECO, PGW or the Water Department.<\/p>\n
According to Dagress, the suspects would tell the victim, who had just paid a bill, that there was a problem with their account and that they would send someone to “fix” it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are sending someone to the house. They are getting debit card information from these older adults, along with the actual physical debit cards,” she said.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the suspects would then collect debit cards and financial information, including the victims’ PINs.<\/p>\n
Dagress said the men accused in the scheme would make personal purchases, get money orders and transfer money to their own personal accounts.<\/p>\n
Mariel Delacruz with Victims Services said scams like this don’t just drain bank accounts, they also leave many seniors too afraid to speak up.<\/p>\n
“To have your last dollar taken from you is really hurtful,” Delacruz said.<\/p>\n
The suspects are accused of 14 charges, including conspiracy, corrupt organizations, identity theft, theft of mail, receiving stolen property, impersonating a public employee and others.<\/p>\n
Officials said Ringgold and Haynes are being held on a $1.8 million bail, Turner and Chappell are being held on a $5.4 million bail, and Davis is in the hospital and hasn’t been arraigned. <\/p>\n
According to Krasner, his office expects to make more arrests in connection with the scheme.<\/p>\n
NBC10 Responds found that elder fraud is only growing.<\/p>\n
According to FBI data, complaints from seniors jumped 37% in just one year, with reported losses topping $7.7 billion in 2025.<\/p>\n
These are some of the biggest red flags:<\/p>\n
Anyone telling you not to tell others about your payment<\/p>\n
Pressure to pay immediately<\/p>\n
Someone showing up in person asking for money or financial information<\/p>\n
If you believe you are a victim, or know someone who may have been a victim of this crime, you are encouraged to call the hotline at 215-686-5710.<\/p>\n
NBC10 Responds reached out to the lawyers of two of the men who have representation. We are waiting to hear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five people were arrested in connection with an organized scheme that defrauded dozens of seniors across Philadelphia, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21563,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-199608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-nbc10-responds","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}