Men in prison for $300 million magazine fraud

MINNEAPOLIS – Two men have been sentenced to prison for their respective roles in a $300 million nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme that targeted elderly and vulnerable victims, U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger announced Tuesday.

Anthony Eugene Moulder and Abdou-Rahmane Diallo were sentenced to 120 and 90 months in prison respectively on Monday.

Moulder pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud on January 13, 2023.

Diallo pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud on March 4, 2024.

Anthony Eugene Moulder

According to federal prosecutors, Moulder, 63, of Fort Myers, ran Florida-based companies involved in fraudulent magazine sales, including Gulf Coast Readers Inc., ARCO Media Inc., KMK Magazines Inc. and Leisure Time Resources Inc.

From 2008 to 2020, Moulder purchased lists of current magazine subscribers, many of whom were elderly and vulnerable, authorities said.

Moulder's sales teams exploited the list and used deceptive sales scripts to persuade victims to make “large or repeated payments” to Moulder's company for unwanted magazine subscriptions, prosecutors said.

According to investigators, Moulder and his companies defrauded thousands of victims across the United States of approximately $86,589,272.

Abdou-Rahmane Diallo

Meanwhile, Diallo, 36, of Montreal, Quebec, co-owned and operated Readers Services, a Canada-based company that ran a telemarketing fraud scheme, authorities said.

According to investigators, between 2011 and 2020, Diallo targeted individuals who had previously been victims of fraudulent magazine publishers and who received ongoing invoices from one or more fraudulent magazine publishers.

Diallo posed as an employee of the “magazine cancellation department” and offered the victims the opportunity to pay off their “outstanding debts” and cancel their existing magazine subscriptions in return for a large lump sum payment, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

In reality, the victims did not owe any money to Diallo or his company, and Diallo had no authority or ability to cancel the victims' existing magazine subscriptions or any outstanding balances, according to authorities.

Diallo and other participants in his scheme defrauded more than 20,000 victims of about $30 million, investigators said.