Montgomery County, Maryland — Police have arrested Neel Patel, 23, of Carol Stream, Illinois, in connection with a gold bar scam that defrauded one woman of nearly $800,000. Patel was apprehended on July 23 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Dublin, Ireland, allegedly fleeing the country.
Patel is accused of working alongside another suspect, Wenhui Sun, 34, of Lake Forest, California, who was arrested in Montgomery County in March. The duo allegedly posed as FBI agents, convincing the victim to hand over gold bars under the pretense of securing her assets for safekeeping.
According to police reports, the victim was contacted in March by a man impersonating an official from the Office of the Inspector General of the Federal Trade Commission. He informed her that she was a victim of identity theft, which had triggered a federal investigation involving drugs and money laundering. The woman was directed to convert her assets into gold bars, which were said to be collected by an FBI agent for the U.S. Treasury Department.
Following the instructions, the victim made two separate deliveries of gold bars to the fake agents, totaling a staggering $789,000 in value.
In a related case last month, authorities arrested a 52-year-old Maryland man accused of scamming a 74-year-old man out of over $1 million in gold bars. The elderly man only realized he was a victim after seeing a local news report about similar scams.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy revealed that there have been at least 17 victims of such scams in the county, resulting in millions of dollars lost. Police have noted that these scams often target older adults, who are perceived as prime targets due to their substantial retirement savings.
Detective Sean Petty from the Montgomery County Police Department’s financial crimes division emphasized the challenges in tracking gold. “Once you have the gold, if you melt it and turn it into different pieces of jewelry, we would never know the difference,” he stated.
Patel has been extradited back to Maryland and is currently held at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit, awaiting a bond hearing.