She was convinced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on gold bars to help the police, but it was a scam

Lisa Bromley has done a lot of things during her 30 years as a police officer in the suburbs of Marylandus U.S. Undercover drug purchases. Armed robbery investigations. Working car accidents.

But it was only last week that she saw herself disguised in a Covid-19 and a wig, playing the role of a scam victim in her 60s who, according to police, had already been robbed of about $789,000 in gold bars. Her hope: Her target would soon stop in a parking lot in search of more gold.

The plan worked, law enforcement officials said in a news release Friday announcing the arrest of Wenhui Sun, 34, of Lake Arbor, California. Local and federal authorities say his scam is part of a growing trend of scammers. Often posing as federal investigators, they persuade their targets to buy gold bars—and hand them over for safekeeping—while fake investigators try to identify thieves who might otherwise have broken into their targets’ bank accounts.

“They’re doing anything they can to get to these people,” said Bromley, who has spent the last decade as a financial crimes investigator and worked on a similar case last year in which the victim lost more than $1 million. “It breaks your heart.”

Scammers project concern and subtle pressure, suggesting that if their targets don’t act quickly, they would not only lose their savings but also miss a chance to help the government fight dangerous identity thieves. “Once the victim is hooked, the scammer will follow through,” said Keith Custer, supervisory special agent for the FBIwho works on these cases in the agency’s Baltimore field office.

Victims of gold bullion and related crimes can be perfectly intelligent, Custer said. “Doctors, lawyers, executives. I’ve seen just about every victim.”

Sun is being held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail on charges of theft over $100,000 and attempted theft over $100,000, according to court records. Sun’s defense could not be located by the Washington Post.

For Bromley and his colleagues in the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office’s financial crimes department, the case began on March 10, when a woman called to report that she thought she had been scammed. The woman, who police identified as Victim 1 in court documents to protect her privacy, said that in February she received a call from a man who identified himself as Mark Cooper of the “Office of Inspector General, Federal Trade Commission,” they wrote. detectives in a court deposition.

Alleged Mark Cooper told the woman she was the victim of identity theft that led to a federal drug and money laundering investigation. The man then put Victim 1 in touch with someone identifying himself as “Officer David Freeman,” who said he could provide her with a new Social Security number and witness protection. but only at the conclusion of her investigation, after she cooperated fully, according to the affidavit.

“To ensure her cooperation and protect her assets, Victim 1 was directed to purchase gold bars,” detectives wrote, “which were to be turned over to FBI agents who would pick up the bars and store them at the U.S. Treasury Department. U.S”.

Evoking the protection of an asset like gold is key to these schemes, said Custer, the FBI agent: “They like to conjure up Federal Reserve banks, images of piles of gold at Fort Knox (the third largest gold deposit in the world ).”

And there’s another reason why they want their targets to buy gold bars — these deals are usually done via wire transfers with legitimate sellers who then send the gold via guaranteed order. Once the gold arrives, Custer said, criminals simply need to persuade their targets to hand it over — a strategy that prevents victims from having to physically go to a bank to withdraw money, which could raise the bank’s suspicions.

In the Montgomery County case, the victim made his first payment of $331,817.54 to a gold seller on February 21. Two weeks later, while she was in contact with the criminals by sending screenshots of her order status, the bars arrived via the delivery company UPS, according to case documents.

The scammers told her to meet a “courier” near a parking lot. She did so, placing the gold box in the back of a car, which then drove away.

Police said they acted again the next day, persuading the woman to transfer $457,410.34 to a dealer in exchange for more gold bars. On March 8, she met the courier again, this time in a nearby but different parking lot, and delivered the second package. The driver, behind the wheel of a Dodge Ram truck with license plate New Yorkleft.

Two days later, realizing she had been the victim of a scam, she called the police.

Surveillance video near the parking lot revealed the truck’s license plate, which they tracked to a New York car rental company and then to Sun, detectives said. Automated license plate readers also tracked the truck traveling from New York to Maryland on the day of the second gold bullion pickup.

Investigators had the woman continue communicating with the scammers, telling them she had more gold bars, to lure them back, even though police were worried the criminals might suspect something. “I was extremely nervous,” Detective Sean Petty said. “This is their job. They perfected it.”

But it worked, they wrote in court documents, saying the fraudsters indicated they would return for a new shipment.

This time they were waiting — a team of financial crimes detectives and undercover police officers, including Bromley, wearing her mask and brown wig, which she had ordered for quick delivery from Amazon. Shortly after 7pm on Monday, a black Jeep Wagoneer — driven by Sun — arrived at the Leisure World guardhouse, and was allowed to pass through, according to detectives.

He stopped at the meeting point, according to detectives, just as Bromley placed a brown box — worthless — in the back seat. The Wagoneer drove off, but not far — undercover cops attacked it a short time later.

Sun spoke with investigators saying a friend in China directed him to drive to Maryland to pick up a package. He said he also picked up the package on March 8, but didn’t know what was in it.

“Sun admitted that he traveled to Tennessee, Montana, New York and Maryland, but reinforced that the only place he picked up packages was in Maryland,” investigators wrote.

They also revealed in court documents something they found in Sun’s Wagoneer: a plane ticket for that day to California. Sun said he postponed the trip to pick up the package, but would leave for California the next day. However, according to court records, he was arrested.