Scammers posing as federal agents across the country are dispatching couriers armed with secret passwords to collect gold bars from retirees, in some cases draining their life savings.
In Laramie, Wyoming, authorities said an elderly woman doled out about $131,000 in gold to a courier after people posing as Federal Trade Commission agents convinced her that her money was at risk, and pushed her to buy $460,000 in gold, according to the Laramie Boomerang. Police began investigating on Sept. 22.
In that case, a coin shop owner grew suspicious and suspected she was being scammed when police got involved and eventually arrested Jithin Sunny, who was charged with felony theft.
A Laramie coin shop owner, police and the elderly victim then teamed up to set a trap, borrowing enough one-ounce gold bars from another dealer to stage a photo of her “purchase” and arranging with her credit union to temporarily process a $500,000 transaction to make it look real. On Oct. 2, she agreed to hand off the gold to a courier at a Qdoba restaurant in Laramie.
She and the courier agreed on a password for the handoff, “tulip,” and an undercover detective posing as the victim went to the meeting spot in her place.
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Sunny, a Canadian citizen, claimed to authorities that he was contacted on Instagram by a group promoting a delivery person job in the U.S., under the impression he’d be delivering antiques to wealthy people.
After his arrest, the Canadian man told authorities he didn’t know about the scam, saying he’d been instructed to travel to Laramie, pick up a package from someone and hand it off to a second courier.
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The FBI calls it a “sophisticated, multi-layer scam” that targets seniors.
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A similar incident happened in Wisconsin, where an individual said she was using Facebook on a laptop when a pop-up message claimed there was a virus, according to the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office. The message showed a phone number that could be called to secure personal information.
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When the victim called the number, a man answered and said the call was being transferred to the Federal Trade Commission’s fraud department. Scammers then allegedly told the victim someone had tried to drain their savings account through a wire transfer, but it was blocked.
To protect their assets, the victim was allegedly told to withdraw their savings, convert the money into gold bars and wait for an “officer” to collect them at home. Following those instructions, the victim bought gold bars, photographed them and bagged them for pickup.
The sheriff’s office said the victim spent much of Oct. 20 on the phone with a man who called himself “Sam.” When a sheriff’s deputy arrived at the home and the victim mentioned it, “Sam” ordered them to hang up, tell the deputy nothing and call back once he was gone.
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When the victim resumed speaking with “Sam,” they were instructed to take the bag with gold outside and wait for the courier to arrive. Law enforcement caught the man who picked up the gold, who was identified as Dhavalkumar Dashrathgiri Bava. He was taken into custody on charges of felony conspiracy to commit theft of more than $100,000 by false representation, with an enhanced penalty because the victim was elderly.
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Tom Hyslip, former Secret Service agent and professor of cybercrime at the University of South Florida, told Fox News Digital that the scam is operated by “organized criminal gangs.”
“A lot of them operate out of Africa. There’s been many indictments of arrests over the years for these types of scams. And they’ve been going around for years and the criminals keep changing their MO. It used to be the Nigerian Prince. And then it went to the investment scheme or someone’s been kidnapped,” Hyslip said.
“So now they’re trying to take their time, pretend they’re from a government agency or your bank, build that rapport, build the trust, then they make the ask.”