The Canadian man sentenced last week for his role in a grandparent scam lived a lavish beachfront lifestyle, drove a Porsche and bought cocaine using money stolen from vulnerable seniors, according to the U.S. prosecutors who put him in prison.
Sentencing documents filed in U.S. court say that Stefano Zanetti, 44, operated — or appeared to operate — a successful watersports rental company in Panama while he co-ordinated a multimillion-dollar fraud operation.
“In reality, Zanetti was the lynchpin in an international conspiracy designed to systematically steal money from elderly victims in the United States,” Jeffrey R. Bengel, assistant U.S. attorney, wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“Zanetti lived large on the proceeds of his crimes for years — enjoying beachfront property, driving a Porsche, owning boats and jet skis, and buying cocaine.”
The sentencing documents filed in Zanetti’s case — and in several other cases of men accused alongside him — show how the network co-ordinated money pickups from elderly victims across the U.S. on behalf of the scammers based in Montreal.
All the while, the documents show, the men posed as successful businessmen.
Their cases echo that of Gareth West, Zanetti’s alleged partner, who prosecutors call the “kingpin” of the scam network. West presented himself as a wealthy real estate developer and fitness influencer while prosecutors say he was earning millions from scamming the elderly.
In Zanetti’s case, he ran Luxury Water Sports, a popular jet ski rental company located in Buenaventura, a resort town on Panama’s Pacific coast.
On its Instagram page, Zanetti posed atop jet skis and smiled alongside customers. The company was popular. Clients rated it highly and tourists posted pictures of themselves on the company’s rental yacht.
Zanetti sent pictures of himself at the wheel of a Porsche to his underlings, men hired to collect money from scam victims across the U.S. Pictures also show him sitting beachside, likely beneath the parasols and palm trees of the Buenaventura resort.
Meanwhile, his “crews” — groups of three men — were visiting American cities, renting cars, hotel rooms and acting as “bail bondsmen” to collect money from victims who had been scammed into giving up thousands of dollars.
Zanetti was the go-between between the scammers located in the call centres in Montreal and the “bail bondsmen” who collected the money.
Victims of the scam have told CBC how the scam affected their mental health, making them feel vulnerable in old age in addition to, in some cases, robbing them of vital life savings or retirement funds.
Sometimes, the “bail bondsmen” would get arrested — it happened 10 times while Zanetti was co-ordinating the money pickups. But he remained undeterred. According to the U.S. prosecutors, he thought he was safe from law enforcement because he was in Panama.
Zanetti was convicted of being involved in the scam activity beginning in September 2021, but the prosecutors say the evidence suggests he was involved in grandparent scams going back at least to 2019 and, at one point, he himself was scamming seniors out of call centres in Montreal, acting as a “closer.”
For years, the scam earned millions, but some of Zanetti’s “bail bondsmen” were arrested, including Roderick Feurtado, who also posed as a successful businessman with a “multimillion-dollar income,” according to prosecutors.
“Feurtado has constructed a persona for himself — Mr. Worldwide, the globetrotting cryptocurrency tycoon and multimillion-dollar earner,” Bengel wrote in sentencing documents in Feurtado’s case. “In reality, he is a fraudster who travelled to Pittsburgh to steal money from the elderly.”
When police arrested Feurtado and two other men in Pittsburgh, they caught them with more than $200,000 US in cash taken from victims — money believed to have been gathered over just three days, which prosecutors said showed the scale of the fraud.
The arrests set off alarm bells among the rest of the scammers — the prosecutors say West was concerned and visited Zanetti in Panama to discuss the operation. A photo from West’s Instagram account at the time shows him riding in a small plane with Zanetti.
The network continued to operate. Two years later, Zanetti was arrested and extradited to the U.S. While in custody, before he pleaded guilty, U.S. investigators say Zanetti told a cellmate that he was in touch with people back in Canada who were “trying to buy his silence for $2 million.”
In a sentencing submission of his own after his guilty plea, Zanetti expressed remorse for his actions and requested a 120-month sentence — much lower than what U.S. sentencing guidelines would have imposed on him.
His son filed a letter with the court asking for lenience for his father. In the letter, he says Zanetti cared for his aging parents and taught him how to be a man of integrity.
By contrast, Bengel, the U.S. prosecutor, said Zanetti had full knowledge of the vulnerability of the victims targeted by the scam.
“The victims in this case lost hard-earned money, which they planned to rely on in retirement or gift to their grandchildren, so that Zanetti could party, ride jet skis, live near the ocean, and drive a sports car,” Bengel wrote.
The judge, Nicholas Ranjan, agreed with Bengel and imposed a 188-month — or 15-and-a-half-year — sentence, the upper limit of the sentencing guidelines and in line with what Bengel had requested. He also ordered more than $700,000 US in restitution.
For his part, Feurtado, the man who posed as a bail bondsmen, also received a hefty sentence of 146 months in 2024 — more than the prosecution had asked for — despite him telling his probation officer that he planned to “ask congress to establish a ‘Grandpa Protection Program,’ which would be a program/system to help prevent elderly people from being duped by [grandparent scams].”
He now writes religious books and sells them on Amazon — from prison.
