INDIANAPOLIS — Millions of Hoosiers may now get fewer robocalls after a massive robocall operation was shut down, Attorney General Todd Rokita announced Monday.
Rokita said his office received judgments this week shutting down a robocall operation that blasted billions of robocalls to people across the country.
Rokita's office said the operation placed more than 25 million robocalls to Hoosiers in 2019 and 2020.
The operation was run by John Caldwell Spiller II and his business partner Jakob Mears, the owners of Texas-based Rising Eagle Capital Group LLC and JSquared Telecom LLC, as well as Rising Eagle Capital Group–Cayman.
The attorney general's office sued Spiller and Mears in June 2020, accusing them of violating the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, as well as various state consumer protection laws.
Spiller and Mears were also accused of using their companies to carry out scams involving extended car warranties and health care services, among other things.
They spoofed calls to mislead consumers and called millions of people on Do Not Call lists.
Rokita said of the 25 million Hoosiers who received robocalls in 2019 and 2020, 13.5 million were calls to people whose numbers were on the Do Not Call Registry and five million were to Hoosiers on the Indiana Do Not Call list.
They are now permanently banned from making or setting up any robocalls as well as telemarketing.
Rokita worked with attorneys general from Arkansas, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas in this case.
“Winning the war on robocallers requires constantly staying on offense and tracking the latest technologies the scammers are using to carry out their schemes,” Attorney General Rokita said. “We have pledged to do that since we first took office, and we continue to make good on that promise.”
Rokita said this fight isn't over, however.
The attorneys general are continuing their cases in this same litigation against Florida-based Scott Shapiro, Michael Theron Smith Jr., and Health Advisors of America Inc.
Shapiro and Smith allegedly worked with Mears and Spiller to make illegal robocalls targeting consumers who never asked to be contacted by Health Advisors, Rokita said.
(Editor's Note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the operation reportedly placed 25 million robocalls, not the attorney general's office.)