A Bethesda man realized he had been swindled out of $860,000 in a so-called gold bar scam after seeing a news story about another victim of the common financial fraud scheme, according to Montgomery County police.
The 74-year-old resident contacted the department’s Financial Crimes Section on Wednesday to report that “he believed he had been scammed after seeing a local news report of a woman losing nearly $1 million dollars in a gold bar scam,” police said Thursday in a statement.
Police then conducted an undercover operation that led to the arrest Wednesday of Vipul J. Thakkar, 52, of Owings Mills, who was charged with “multiple counts of theft” in connection with “government-imposter related gold bar scams, the statement said. Thakkar is being held without bond in the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit in Rockville. No attorney information for Thakkar was available in court records.
Montgomery County residents and people across the country have been defrauded of millions of dollars in such financial fraud scams, according to authorities. Earlier this month, a 19-year-old man from Brooklyn, New York, was charged with theft in connection with a so-called gold bar scam that swindled an 82-year-old Silver Spring woman out of more than $900,000, according to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s office.
In January, the FBI released a public service announcement warning people to be aware of scammers who may ask them to liquidate their assets into cash or gold and then send a courier to pick up the money or precious metals.
As of April, about a dozen county residents had lost more than a total of $5 million to the gold bar scam, police Detective Sean Petty, a member of the department’s Financial Crimes Division, told MoCo360. Petty has been outspoken about the importance of people protecting themselves from that scam and other financial fraud schemes.
“The key here is prevention because scamming is never going to stop,” Petty said. “We can definitely make it harder for the scammers by not indulging them and sending them gold.”
The alleged scam involving the Bethesda resident began when he received an email saying a suspicious deposit had been made into his bank account, police said. An “unknown suspect” then instructed him to protect his assets by converting them into gold.
Starting in March, the man purchased a total of $1.1 million in gold bars on 10 separate occasions and arranged to have the bars picked up by Thakkar’s associates, police said.
The man saw the news report about the woman who was victimized and contact police after he had made a final purchase of more than $240,000 dollars in gold bars.
The scam ended after a county detective communicated with Thakkar and arranged a pick-up at the Bethesda man’s home, according to police. Posing as the man, a detective “handed a package” to Thakkar, “who then got into a car and drove away.” Officers then stopped Thakkar and arrested him.
Detectives continue to investigate the case and are asking anyone who may be a victim of such a scam to come forward, county police spokesperson Lauren Ivey said Friday in an email to MoCo360. No information was provided about whether any of the Bethesda resident’s money was recovered.