A man who allegedly participated in defrauding a 70-year-old Carlsbad woman out of about $1.4 million of her savings has been charged by federal prosecutors in San Diego with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Thursday.
Prosecutors say Xilin Sun, 35, of Ontario, worked alongside a group of people who tricked the victim into handing over her money because she wrongly believed his information bank account had been compromised.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the woman's ordeal began with a pop-up message appearing on her computer, informing her that her computer had been hacked. When she called for help, several co-conspirators posing as tech support employees advised her to download software onto her computer.
Other people posing as employees of her bank later told her that with her personal identifying information and bank account under threat, she needed to protect her money.
At the direction of the fraudsters, she deposited approximately $55,700 into Bitcoin ATMs and then sent three wire transfers totaling approximately $1,335,000 to a precious metals company in San Marcos, according to investigators. She handed over the purchased precious metals, which consisted mostly of gold, to scammers for supposed safekeeping, according to prosecutors, who said the woman was told the gold bars would be sent to a secure locker at the US Treasury.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said the scammers contacted her again in February, but this time the victim contacted the FBI and a fake gold delivery was set up.
The victim gave a package that the scammers said contained $100,000 in gold to a co-conspirator. This person then allegedly handed the package to Sun, who was arrested.
A similar case in San Diego, in which a 65-year-old local woman handed over $200,000 of her savings to scammers, recently led to charges against a man.
This case also involved a computer pop-up message, a false fraud alert on her bank account and a scheme to trick the woman into handing over her savings to scammers under the guise of keeping her money safe.
“If you believe you have been scammed, report it immediately,” San Diego U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said in a statement. “These schemes are organized by sophisticated global networks capable of fooling even the most sophisticated computer users. But if victims report quickly, we have a better chance of catching the fraudsters and recovering the stolen money.”