Elderly US woman is swindled of almost RM1.17mil in bogus identity theft inquiry

By convincing her that her identity might have been stolen, a man posing as a federal law enforcement agent persuaded an elderly Covington woman to hand over almost a quarter million dollars to his associates, authorities say.

The scam is described in a sworn affidavit filed Nov 17 in federal court by an FBI agent to arrest one of the associates, Jiaquin Ye of Houston. Authorities booked him with lying to a federal agency about his role in the scheme, which they say was acting as a courier.

The victim, 78, said she was first contacted by phone in April and eventually was put in touch with a man calling himself Sean Watson and purporting to be a Drug Enforcement Administration agent. He told her that her Social Security number had been compromised and that she needed to secure her money in “federal lockboxes”.

Don’t tell anyone

She was advised not to discuss the supposed investigation and that once her money was moved, she would get a new Social Security number and her money back.

Following Watson’s instructions, she transferred about US$234,500 (RM1.10mil) from her retirement account to her bank account. An artist, she was instructed to tell her financial planner she needed most of the money to open an art gallery.

Later, Watson persuaded her to send US$134,000 (RM630,470) via cashiers checks to a snowboard company in California, and a US$70,000 (RM329,350) to a wholesale produce company in New York.

Cash delivery

Ye came into play when Watson sent him to the woman’s house to pick up US$34,500 (RM162,322) in cash, the affidavit says. The FBI arrested him there on Nov 16.

He told investigators he didn’t know what the money was for but that he was to drive it back to Houston to be converted to Chinese currency.

He said that about a week earlier, a friend in Houston had offered him an easy way to make money. As a result, he said, he began talking with a person identified in the affidavit as “subject 1”.

But investigators found text messages on his phone suggesting he had been involved in the scheme since at least Nov 2, longer than he let on, and thus booked him with lying. — The Times-Picayune/Tribune News Service