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A 76-year-old Westbury woman received multiple calls from scammers who eventually got her to take out nearly $400,000 worth of her money and use it to purchase gold bars which the con artists then took from her, according to Nassau County Police.
The first incident occurred on Friday, May 19, when the woman received a call from an unknown man claiming that her computer had been compromised and she needed to secure her finances.
In order to do that, the scammer allegedly told her, she needed to transfer money out of her account and use her savings to purchase gold bars.
She reportedly purchased $194,152 worth of gold bars, and the scammer (posing as a federal employee) picked them up from her residence for “safekeeping.”
The victim was contacted again by the con artist on Friday, May 26, and she purchased a second set of gold bars valued at $191,836, police said.
This time, the woman was told to place the bars in a box under a tree in her front yard, where the so-called federal agents would pick it up.
She then became suspicious and called the police who, after an investigation, located and arrested Arpit Dineshbhai Patel, aged 38, of Pennsylvania, and Hitesh Jashbhai Patel, aged 49, of New Jersey.
Both men are charged with second-degree attempted grand larceny and were scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday, June 1.
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