MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica – The lead vehicle of a motorcade from the Jamaican lottery scam task force rushes through traffic and pulls up to a modest neighborhood of single-story homes. Armed officers jump out to stake out the perimeter and a U.S. special agent for Homeland Security investigations shows an NBC News team an extravagant (by Jamaican standards) three-story mansion jutting from the hillside.

Multiple electric lines run into the home, which has security cameras, a gilded electronic gate and elaborate balconies. We’re told the owner is awaiting trial -- one of 109 Jamaicans charged so far under a cooperative effort between the U.S. and Jamaica to crack down on phone scams targeting elderly Americans in an effort known as Project JOLT.

This is Jamaica’s way of letting Americans know that it knows it has a problem and is trying to do something about it.  Authorities say Jamaican scammers have become increasingly sophisticated, aggressive and successful at talking elderly Americans out of hundreds of millions of dollars.  In fact, so many Americans are falling for Jamaican scams that Jamaican officials claim it’s hurt their country’s reputation.

“If we can't get it under control and hopefully eradicate it completely then it's going to have an impact on the legitimate businesses in Jamaica,” said Peter Bunting Jamaica’s Minister of National Security.

This Caribbean island country is known for ocean breezes, hospitality and a laid back lifestyle. But  it also has a troubling side that is becoming familiar to some unlucky Americans.

Jamaican con artists are defrauding mostly elderly targets by selling them a bogus dream.  Millions of dollars, new cars and homes won in lotteries and sweepstakes the seniors never entered, according to victims and law enforcement officials.

Norman Breidenbaugh, 81, of Baltimore gave over $400,000 to lottery scammers who promised him millions in cash and a new car once he paid the taxes on the winnings.

His hope was to have enough money to move his wife, Cindy, who was suffering from dementia, from a nursing facility back into their home.

“I believe in the marriage vows I took, which were, you know, 'Til death do us part,’ So I was doing everything I could to get money to bring her home to take care of her,” he said.

Even after she died in 2009, Breidenbaugh kept paying. Eventually, he lost his home and every penny he had. 

Some of the callers identified themselves as agents from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service and the FBI, confirming his winnings and telling him he had to pay taxes or fees to receive the prizes.

“They tell you that they're this, that and the other thing and you want to believe they're legitimate and it turns out they're scum,” Breidenbaugh said.

His experience is not unique. The Federal Trade Commission reported 30,000 complaints related to Jamaican lottery scams in 2012. However, the number of actual victims is likely far higher. Those are only complaints from victims who knew where the calls originated from. The FTC estimates fewer than 10 percent of victims ever report the crime.

Many elderly victims are ashamed of being duped. “Embarrassment is the scammers' greatest ally,” says Deputy Chief William King of York County Sheriff’s office in Maine.

King’s first Jamaican scam case was in 2011.  Since then, he has spoken to hundreds of victims from around the country and has observed common threads -- intimidation, threats, harassment and manipulation.

To those who question how anyone could fall for such a scam, King points to the island’s legitimate telemarketing outsourcing industry, which officials say may have been a breeding ground for early scammers.  “They're trained to get somebody on the telephone, to overcome objections, to create a fantasy,” he said.

Once a victim is hooked, scammers call victims incessantly, dozens of times a day. When the senior tries to sever ties, swindlers often change the victim’s number without their knowledge so no one else can reach them.  They even use Google Earth to describe a senior’s neighborhood and frighten them into paying, authorities say.

Some scammers use romance to reel in victims, feigning interest in lonely seniors, who pay, in part, to maintain the connection.

The United States and Jamaica began working together to eradicate scamming last year.  In 2009, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, formed the Joint Operations Linked to Telemarketing task force, or (JOLT). And last year, Jamaica formed the Major Organized Crime and Anti-corruption Task Force (MOCA), charged with investigating lottery scammers. 

Jamaican authorities say that as they have cracked down on drug trafficking, more and more criminals have moved into scams for easy money.  The low barrier to entry makes it an appealing illicit endeavor, they say.  All you need is a phone, a computer and some phone numbers.

Those phone numbers come from lead lists or what some scammers call “suckers” lists, originating from the United States and then sold in Jamaica.  So valuable are the lists that criminals are killing one another over them, authorities say. 

Bunting, the Jamaican national security minister, estimates 40 to 50 percent of all criminal activity in St. James Parish, the center of scamming activity in the country, is related to the endeavor.  . 

MOCA has made over 400 arrests, but only a quarter of those have resulted in charges. Where authorities cannot get convictions for scamming, they say they charge victims for any offense they can. The goal is to disrupt the activity.

“If you recall, the infamous Al Capone in Chicago, was not sent to prison, and he did not die in prison, while serving time for bootlegging or other organized crime activities, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Carl Williams, the assistant police commissioner.  “He was charged and sentenced for tax evasion, so that's the same principle we take toward doing our enforcement.”

Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, acknowledges that the new Jamaican administration is taking a stronger approach to combat scamming, but she says it is too little too late.

“For years the Jamaican government turned a blind eye to this fraud,” Collins said. “Only recently has the Jamaican government, because of the threat to the reputation of the island as a vacation haven, taken any kind of action to try to crack down and stop these scams.”

Jamaican officials have a difficult task:  They must also combat public opinion, because some Jamaicans don’t see scamming as a crime.

“I think the one who give it should be blamed,” one resident told NBC News as he crossed Montego Bay’s bustling Sam Sharpe Square, “not the one who just make a little phone call.”  He called scamming “a smart thing to do.”

Kim Nichols of Hermon, Maine, knows the operations are sophisticated.  She estimates her 77-year-old father, Bill, who did not want us to use his last name, gave Jamaican scammers over $85,000 in just six months.

“I mean they're incredibly professional at what they do,” she said.  “I was amazed at how complicated and layered this scam is and how good at it they were unfortunately.”

Nichols said her father, a retired airline pilot, seemed an unlikely candidate to fall for such a swindle.

“He's just very careful with his money, so everyone was very surprised when this happened,” she said. 

Her father said he had multiple callers hounding him at the same time,  some claiming to be IRS agents or Treasury agents.

“It was hard to tell who was real and who was fictitious,” he lamented. “And I guess they all were in the final analysis of it. I'd say if they can fool me, they can fool anybody.”

Breidenbaugh, the man who lost everything to the scammers, says there is only one way for seniors to protect themselves from becoming a victim.

“Please don't talk to them,” he said. “Hang that damn phone up. Because if they get their fingers into you, they got you for good.”

And U.S. and Jamaican officials both have one message for Americans:  If you haven't played the lottery, you didn't win the lottery.

Lisa Myers is NBC News' senior investigative correspondent; Talesha Reynolds is a producer in the NBC News Washington Bureau.

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Mitt Romney with Tiffany and James Catledge at 2010 fundraiser for Meg Whitman, GOP candidate for California governor.

Two figures at the center of an alleged $164 million real estate scam marketed out of South Florida have been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco on mail fraud and conspiracy charges.

James B. Catledge, an investment guru who has a history of being a major Republican Party donor, and Canadian businessman Derek F.C. Elliott, are accused of fraudulently soliciting $91.3 million from investors to build a resort in the Dominican Republic that never opened.

Each man faces up to 20 years in prison, and a maximum fine that is twice the value of the property involved.

The six-page indictment announced Friday is a bare-bones document that, despite the enormous sums involved, provides few details about the scope of the alleged fraud, how many people were burned or the identities of victims.

The indictment grew out of an FBI investigation that began 2 1/2 years ago during a civil racketeering lawsuit in Miami federal court filed by 230 disgruntled investors in the ill-fated EMI Sun Village Resort and Spa.

Broward Bulldog.org reported in January 2010 that court-appointed special master Thomas Scott, a Miami lawyer and former federal judge and U.S. Attorney, had found evidence that Sun Village was actually a huge “Ponzi-style” scheme. He recommended that U.S and Canadian law enforcement investigate.

“The unassailable fact (is) that thousands of investors/owners and by extension their families in the U.S. and Canada, as well as other countries, have been financially destroyed,” Scott wrote in his 50-page report.

Indictment details
According to the indictment, Elliott was the president of various hospitality businesses in the Dominican Republic, including a pair of resorts. Catledge is a motivational speaker and the founder of several marketing companies that, among other things, sold investments in island resorts.

In 2005, the pair took out a 2005 bank loan to buy an old hotel near Santo Domingo they named the Sun Village Juan Dolio resort. They began renovations and recruited investors through Catledge’s Nevada-based sales and marketing companies Impact Inc. and Net Worth Solutions.

Sun Village marketed its Dominican properties out of an office in Doral in western Miami-Dade County. Money that flowed in was routed through an account at a Citibank branch in Tamarac, the Miami lawsuit said.

According to a statement released by prosecutors, Catledge and Elliott’s sales pitch “failed to tell investors that the full commissions being taken on their investment were approximately 44 percent, that the renovations were underfunded, that investors’ money was being used on other projects, and the returns they promised were unsupportable and could not be achieved.

The Miami special master’s report described Catledge as “the main architect of the Ponzi scheme.”

Catledge and Elliott diverted nearly $69 million from investors to commissions, other projects and to pay “guaranteed” interest to early investors, the indictment said.

‘Real estate secrets of the wealthy’
More details are contained in related, but non-criminal charges brought in May by the Securities and Exchange Commission against Catledge and Elliott. The principal allegation is that the men were involved in the fraudulent offering of unregistered investments for Juan Dolio and another Sun Village resort, Cofresi.

The SEC’s complaint contends the two men raised nearly $164 million selling timeshares and other ownership interests to approximately 1,200 investors between 2004 and 2009.  The complaint also stated the pair promised investors 5 to 12 percent annual returns, while also assuring that principal investments remained safe.

Catledge and Elliott used various sales materials to convince people to use their home equity and savings to invest in securities tied to the resorts, the SEC complaint said. One visual presentation was titled, “Real Estate Secrets of the Wealthy.”

Neither the indictment nor the SEC complaint details what happened to the millions that Catledge and Elliott allegedly siphoned away from investors.

The SEC, however, said Catledge set up a trust in the South Pacific’s Cook Islands where he funneled more than $15 million in commissions that bypassed his marketing company. He and his families were the only beneficiaries.

Court papers filed in the now-closed investor litigation in Miami say the money went to pay for the lavish lifestyle and gambling debts of the resorts’ developers.

The SEC complaint says that Elliott and his father, former Sunrise resident Frederick Elliott, originally purchased the Cofresi resort in 2003 and a year later needed additional funds to finish construction work. A mutual friend suggested they talk to Catledge, who could help them raise the capital they needed.

Net Worth sales associates soon began soliciting potential investors.

Both Juan Dolio and Cofresi were ultimately foreclosed. Investors were wiped out when both projects were sold at public auction in late 2009.

The Miami special master’s report blamed Elliott and his father for “mismanagement and/or essential theft of investor monies” that ultimately delivered “the fatal blows to the investors.”

Still, prosecutors or SEC attorneys have not accused Frederick Elliott of any wrongdoing.

The SEC’s complaint seeks disgorgement of all of Catledge and Derek Elliott’s allegedly ill-gotten gains. Also sought: fines and permanent injunctions against them and EMI Sun Village.

Big political donor
In 2008, while authorities contend the scam was in operation, Catledge contributed more than $100,000 to the Republican National Committee, John McCain’s presidential campaign and other Republican causes.

Catledge and his wife, Tiffany, also contributed to Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign before he dropped out of the race.

On May 28, 2008, Catledge and his wife attended what the Deseret News in Salt Lake City reported was a $70,000-a-couple dinner with President George W. Bush at Mitt and Ann Romney’s vacation home in Deer Valley, Utah.

In April 2010, the Catledges attended a California fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. California records show Catledge gave $30,000 to Whitman’s unsuccessful bid.

Catledge has reported no contributions to federal candidates this election cycle.

Catledge’s attorney, Las Vegas celebrity lawyer David Chesnoff, was unavailable for comment. He previously said his client maintains his innocence.

“He categorically denies engaging in any criminal conduct,” Chesnoff said.

Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Supporters of President Barack Obama and his various campaigns also have been linked to alleged wrongdoing, both criminal and civil.

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Chicago businessman and longtime Obama fundraiser, was convicted of fraud and bribery charges in 2008 in connection with an attempt to extort millions of dollars from businesses seeking to do business with Illinois state agencies. He was sentenced to 10 ½ years in prison.

In April, the Associated Press reported that Abake Assongba,  a major New York donor to Obama, had been accused in a civil lawsuit in Florida of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official.

Despite last week’s indictment, neither Catledge nor Elliott have been arrested.

Catledge, 45, who lives in Rancho Santa Fe, California, received a summons and is due for arraignment Oct. 5, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco.

No court date has been scheduled for Elliot, 42, who lives near Toronto. The spokesman declined comment when asked if prosecutors consider Elliott a fugitive.

BrowardBulldog.org is a Florida-based nonprofit, independent and nonpartisan news organization that seeks to provide authoritative reporting in the public interest while upholding high standards of fairness and accuracy.

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