A New York man is accused of impersonating a government agent in a scheme to defraud a 72-year-old Newton woman of nearly half a million dollars, the district attorney said Tuesday.
Vishal Kumar, 23, of Queens, New York, has been charged with extortion, larceny over $250 from a person over 60, and conspiracy, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement.
Kumar was indicted by a Middlesex County Grand Jury on February 26. At his arraignment, Kumar was ordered held in lieu of $500,000 cash bail. His next court date is April 2.
According to Ryan, on or around December 4, 2024, the victim received a phone call from people claiming to be federal Drug Enforcement Agency agents.
The callers allegedly informed the victim that someone had opened 22 accounts in her name. They claimed that the woman was in charge of $2 million in those accounts, which were being used for illegal narcotics transactions, Ryan explained.
When the victim informed the “agents” that she had not opened the accounts, she was told that in order to prevent identity theft, she needed to transfer all of her assets to the United States Treasury and be given Treasury checks to secure those assets, according to Ryan.
The victim was warned that if she did not cooperate, the FBI would arrest her.
Another caller then contacted the victim, claiming to be her “case manager” at the US Treasury.
That person told her to transfer her funds to the Treasury by purchasing gold bars, after which her social security number would be changed and her money returned. The victim was instructed to purchase gold bars and deliver them to couriers at the times and locations specified by the caller.
Over the next month, fearing arrest, the victim spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from her retirement account to buy gold bars, according to Ryan.
The victim delivered twice to a courier sent by the scammers.
On December 17, she delivered 12 gold bars worth around $342,000. Then, on December 24, she delivered three gold bars worth around $88,955.43.
Ryan said that on December 26, the victim wired $49,755 to a bank account at the scammers’ direction.
According to Ryan, the scammers promised the victim that her gold would be secured by Treasury checks. Despite being sent images of Treasury checks by the “agents,” the victim lost more than $480,000.
The victim’s family later discovered that she was being coerced into liquidating her assets and reported it to law enforcement. Police opened an investigation.
An undercover officer posed as the victim and delivered a package containing $165,000 in gold bars to Kumar.
Kumar first confirmed the code-word given to the victim by the fraudster posing as a federal agent over the phone. Newton Police detectives and FBI special agents apprehended Kumar after he confirmed the code-word and took the package, according to Ryan.
The United States Secret Service later confirmed that the images of the checks were counterfeit.
“This elaborate scheme illustrates several common aspects of these financial scams,” according to Ryan.
The accused “and his alleged co-conspirators used multiple points of contact to build trust, they posed as official government agents, assigned a ‘case worker’ in an effort to appear helpful to the victim and even created fake documents to serve as receipts,” Ryan told CNN.
“Additionally, the perpetrators sought to strike fear in the victim, using the threat of criminal prosecution to pressure her into making huge financial payments,” Mr. Ryan said.
“These scams thrive in secrecy,” Ryan explained. “Fortunately, in this case, the victim and her family were able to enlist the help of law enforcement within a fairly short period of time which put a stop to this exploitation but not before the victim suffered a staggering loss of nearly half a million dollars.”
Ryan stated that an investigation into the roles of Kumar’s co-conspirators is ongoing.
If you are a victim of fraud or attempted fraud you can report it to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center.
