National phone scam busted; alleged ringleader in custody in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — The suspected ringleader of a nationwide scam targeting seniors is in custody in Pittsburgh

Kristoff Cain, who is from Jamaica, was picked up by authorities thousands of miles away in Florida.

RELATED: Pittsburgh woman charged in lottery scam that cheated seniors out of $300K

Channel 11 has followed every step of the police investigation into a large scale Jamaica-based lottery phone scam that involved the arrest of a Brentwood women, Audrey Huff, last April and the subsequent search for the ringleader.

Agents from the office of the attorney general charged Cain with multiple counts of theft and heading a corrupt organization.

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Cain was extradited from Florida to Pittsburgh and is being held without bond at the Allegheny County Jail.

One of the alleged victims of the lottery phone scam, a 90-year-old from Boston, told Channel 11 she got a call last April from Huff, who was then in Pittsburgh, telling her she had won hundreds of thousands in the Jamaican lottery. She said Huff told her to send $20,000 to an address in Brentwood to prepay taxes on her winnings, and she did.

"I wanted to surprise my family because I won this money," the alleged victim said.

According to investigators, Huff was just one of many "money mules" Cain recruited nationwide to scam unsuspecting victims.

Cain was allegedly running a 10-year scam that defrauded people in Pennsylvania and across the county of millions of dollars, sometimes their life savings, while he lived in Jamaica.

"Right now, I have no money. I can't buy no food. I can't pay my bills," the alleged victim said.

Cox Media Group