In 1996, U.S. Attorneys and more than a dozen state Attorneys General continued prosecution of Operation Senior Sentinel, a multifaceted effort led by the U.S. Department of Justice against telemarketing scams that specifically targeted older Americans. Nearly 80 percent of the victims in the underlying prize promotion and recovery room cases addressed in Operation Senior Sentinel were older people. Members of AARP posed as consumers to record fraudulent sales pitches for evidence. When the operation was launched in December 1995 with the simultaneous arrest of nearly 400 telemarketers, the FTC and other civil law enforcement agencies identified victims and witnesses for criminal law enforcement authorities, seized several fraud promoters' assets, and shut down boiler rooms in civil cases.