Fort Mill man was told he won $50M; now, he says he’s out $739K

An 82-year-old Fort Mill man reported being swindled out of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, according to a York County Sheriff’s Office report.

On May 9, a deputy reported meeting with the man at the Tega Cay Police Department about a possible fraud.

The man told the officer he has paid about $739,173 to different bank accounts in Costa Rica between April 2015 and February of this year, the report states.

The transactions began, he said, when he received a call in 2015 that he had won a sweepstakes worth $50 million, the report says.

He told the deputy his first transaction was about $23,000 to an overseas bank account to “cover sweepstakes insurance.”

“The following transactions were for paperwork, etc.,” the report states.

The man told the deputy he used multiple money wiring locations and banks to transfer the money to the accounts overseas, the report says.

The flim-flam victim kept a handwritten ledger with every transaction made during the past two years, and also kept receipts from every transaction, the report says.

No further information was available on the report.

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 1:36 PM with the headline "Fort Mill man was told he won $50M; now, he says he’s out $739K."