Police in two states say fraud rings posing as federal agents are coaching elderly victims to liquidate savings into gold bars, then sending couriers to collect the loot in person.
In Laramie, Wyoming, authorities say an elderly woman handed over roughly $131,000 in gold to a courier after callers claiming to be Federal Trade Commission agents convinced her that her money was at risk. She had been pushed to buy $460,000 in gold overall, according to the Laramie Boomerang. Police opened an investigation on Sept. 22 after a local coin shop owner grew suspicious.
That suspicion led to an undercover operation. The coin shop owner, police and the victim arranged a sting: they borrowed one-ounce gold bars from another dealer to stage a convincing photo of a “purchase,” and her credit union temporarily processed a $500,000 transaction to make the ruse look authentic. On Oct. 2, the victim agreed to meet a courier at a Qdoba restaurant in Laramie to hand off the gold.
She and the courier had settled on a password for the exchange — “tulip” — but it was an undercover detective, not the victim, who showed up to make the handoff. Police arrested Jithin Sunny, a Canadian citizen, and charged him with felony theft.
Sunny told investigators he had been recruited on Instagram for what he believed was a legitimate delivery job in the United States, and that he thought he was transporting antiques to wealthy clients. After his arrest, he said he had simply been told to travel to Laramie, collect a package from someone and pass it to a second courier, and that he had no knowledge of the underlying scam.
The FBI describes schemes of this kind as a “sophisticated, multi-layer scam” aimed squarely at older Americans.
A near-identical scheme in Wisconsin
A separate case unfolded in Marquette County, Wisconsin, where a victim said a pop-up warning appeared while she was using Facebook, claiming her computer had a virus and listing a phone number to call for help, according to the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office.
When she called, a man told her the call was being routed to the Federal Trade Commission’s fraud department. Scammers then claimed someone had attempted to drain her savings through a wire transfer that had supposedly been blocked. To “protect” her assets, she was instructed to withdraw her savings, convert it into gold bars, photograph the bars and bag them for pickup by an “officer.”
The sheriff’s office said the victim spent much of Oct. 20 on the phone with a man identifying himself as “Sam.” When a sheriff’s deputy arrived at her home and she mentioned it during the call, “Sam” instructed her to hang up immediately, say nothing to the deputy and call back once the deputy had left.
She later resumed the call and was told to bring the bagged gold outside for pickup. Law enforcement arrested the courier who arrived, identified as Dhavalkumar Dashrathgiri Bava, on a felony charge of conspiracy to commit theft of more than $100,000 by false representation, with an enhanced penalty applied because the victim was elderly.
“Organized criminal gangs”
Tom Hyslip, a former Secret Service agent who teaches cybercrime at the University of South Florida, told Fox News Digital the tactic reflects an evolution among organized fraud networks.
“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.”
