Montgomery County Police in Gaithersburg, MD, are looking into a serious gold bar scam involving Neel Patel, a 23-year-old Indian-origin guy from Illinois.
Patel was arrested on July 23 at Chicago O’Hare Airport while trying to flee to Dublin, Ireland. He is accused of defrauding an elderly woman out of nearly $800,000.
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This scam is part of a troubling pattern where scammers pretend to be officials to deceive vulnerable people.
In early March 2024, the victim reported that someone pretending to be a Federal Trade Commission inspector tricked her into believing her identity had been stolen.
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She was told her money was involved in a federal investigation and instructed to convert it into gold bars. The scammer claimed these bars would be picked up by an “FBI agent” and stored safely at the U.S. Treasury.
The victim followed these instructions and delivered two shipments of gold bars worth over $789,000.
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Patel, who was identified as the courier, has been brought back to Maryland and is now in custody at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit, awaiting a bond hearing.
Another suspect, Wenhui Sun, 34, from California, was arrested earlier in March and is also involved in the scam.
This case sheds light on a growing problem of gold bar scams targeting older people.
Police have found that these scams are becoming more common. Scammers trick people into converting large amounts of money into gold bars, which they then steal.
Detective Sean Petty pointed out that once gold is turned into jewelry, it’s very hard to trace. This issue is part of a larger trend of financial scams aimed at older adults, who often have substantial retirement savings.
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