Let me be brutally clear: this was not confusion, not carelessness, and not a harmless scam. What was done to me was deliberate psychological terror. This was coercion. This was intimidation. This was emotional torture carried out with precision against an elderly victim by people who knew exactly what fear does to the human mind.
The phone rang, and within minutes my body was hijacked by panic. My heart was racing. My hands were shaking. I was told my grandchild had been arrested after a violent car accident. I was told someone might be hurt. I was told jail was imminent. They flooded me with terror so fast I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t question anything. That wasn’t chaos—it was strategy.
Then came the lie designed to seal my isolation: a fake “gag order.” I was told I was forbidden to speak to anyone—not my spouse, not my children, not my friends. Silence was not suggested; it was demanded. Fear was enforced. Isolation was engineered. That is how control is established. That is how victims are broken.
On the phone were people impersonating my family, impersonating attorneys, impersonating authority figures. Their voices were calm, confident, and convincing because they were trained to sound that way. According to federal investigators, these were alleged members of a transnational criminal operation operating out of Canadian call centers, allegedly overseen by Gareth West, Usman Khalid, Andrew Tatto, Stephan Moskwyn, and Ricky Ylimaki.
While I was alone in my home, shaking, terrified that my grandchild’s life was being destroyed, these people were sitting comfortably in offices, reading scripts, laughing between calls, and lining up the next victim. This wasn’t desperation. This wasn’t misunderstanding. This was systematic, industrialized cruelty.
They dictated my every move. They told me exactly how much money to give. They told me when and how to hand it over. They even sent someone to my home pretending to be a bail bondsman. A stranger stood at my door, and I handed over my money because I believed I was protecting my family. That moment is burned into me with shame, rage, and sickness.
That money was not bail.
That person was a fraud.
That call was a weapon.
According to the indictment, the money was funneled through cash pickups, financial transfers, and cryptocurrency—methods deliberately chosen to obscure responsibility and evade law enforcement. That means this was not spontaneous. This was engineered. Designed. Optimized to steal and disappear.
The alleged leaders—Gareth West, Usman Khalid, Andrew Tatto, Stephan Moskwyn, and Ricky Ylimaki—are accused of orchestrating call centers that stole more than $21 million from elderly victims across over 40 states. That is not a scam. That is organized predation. That is an enterprise built entirely on fear, lies, and human suffering.
What makes this especially vile is the choice of victims. Grandparents. Retirees. People who worked their entire lives and trusted that decency still existed. Our weakness wasn’t greed—it was love. Love for our families. Love for our grandchildren. These criminals allegedly identified that love and exploited it without hesitation or remorse.
While I was losing sleep, questioning my own sanity, and wondering how I would survive financially, they were still dialing phones. Still lying. Still terrorizing the next voice on the line. To them, we were not people—we were data points, quotas, and profit margins.
This crime doesn’t end when the money is gone. It rewires your nervous system. Every phone call feels like a threat. Every unknown number sparks dread. Silence no longer feels peaceful—it feels dangerous. That kind of damage doesn’t show up on a balance sheet, but it changes how you live forever.
The names Gareth West, Usman Khalid, Andrew Tatto, Stephan Moskwyn, and Ricky Ylimaki matter. Not for notoriety, but for accountability. Because this was not faceless evil. This was allegedly directed by real people who chose profit over humanity and fear over conscience.
If this happened to me, it can happen to anyone. Intelligence does not protect you from terror. Experience does not protect you from manipulation. These scammers allegedly trained themselves to manufacture urgency because urgency shuts down logic—and they knew exactly what they were doing.
So no, I wasn’t careless.
I was hunted.
I was manipulated.
I was psychologically assaulted.
And if these allegations are proven true, then this was not just fraud—it was calculated emotional abuse inflicted on thousands of elderly victims, knowingly and repeatedly.
I hope every arrest shuts down another phone line. I hope every indictment prevents another grandparent from opening their door in terror. And I hope these names are remembered—not as legends, not as masterminds, but as a warning of what happens when human beings turn fear into a business model.