CALGARY (CBC) - The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a B.C. man facing 20 fraud charges for allegedly bilking elderly Americans out of thousands of dollars with a lottery scam will be sent to the U.S. to face justice.

Henry Anekwu's, 42, of Vancouver, was ordered extradited in 2005. During that hearing, the RCMP had a single officer present a summary of the evidence against him, rather than subpoena witnesses.

Anekwu appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada where he argued that the RCMP shouldn't have been allowed to present evidence at his extradition hearing in summary form because it amounted to hearsay.

But on Thursday court ruled that the evidence was still valid.

RCMP officials said they hope the court ruling will set a precedent that will make it easier for police to present evidence at future extradition cases.

Staff Sgt. Tim Olmstead, of the RCMP's federal commercial crime section in B.C., said that would mean investigators would be able to spend less time preparing legal evidence and more time fighting telemarketing fraud.

"It frees them up of a lot of court time and a lot of contacting and subpoenaing witnesses third party witnesses who had involvement in the investigation. It just relieves a huge reporting burden on the investigators and allows them to get back to the job of investigating," said Olmstead.

California resident Betty Divall, who is the alleged victim in half of the 20 charges of fraud against Anekwu, said she's fallen prey to more than one Canadian lottery scam.

Divall, who is in her eighties, says her memory isn't what it used to be, but she estimates she's lost more than $2 million in two telemarketing schemes.

The alleged scams began with "a call out of the blue that I had won a huge sum of money," she said.

But there was a catch she had to pay the taxes or fees up front, she said.

"'Find the funds. You're just so fortunate to have this experience. Find the funds no matter what. Borrow, beg or steal and send me the money,'" the scammers told her, she said.

"They have you send cheques all over the place, different banks, different mailing addresses. They instruct you don't tell anybody, don't even tell a relative because this is all highly secretive," she told CBC News on Thursday.

Divall said she does not understand why Anekwu needs to be sent to the U.S. to be put on trial, but either way, she is happy he will soon be heading to court, and possibly to jail.

"He had me mortgaging property mortgaging my home," she said.

"Wherever you have to send them to have them convicted and put in jail is what I want. I don't understand why they have to come back to the United States to be tried, but that's what they tell me," she said.