A 75-year-old Tamarac woman was scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars that took more than 30 years to save in a scheme where a man claimed to be a U.S. marshal, the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n
Detectives said they think there are more people who were targets of the \u201clarge-scale nationwide organized fraud scheme,\u201d the Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a news release Wednesday.<\/p>\n
At least one man allegedly involved in the scheme has been arrested, 21-year-old Mohit Mohit, of Pennsylvania. He was arrested on a BSO warrant in Bradford County in northeast Florida, the news release said.<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, investigators do not believe Mohit was the man who impersonated a U.S. marshal \u201chowever, investigators do believe there are more people involved in this criminal enterprise,\u201d the Sheriff\u2019s Office said. Their investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n
The Tamarac woman received a phone call from someone who claimed they were a representative with Walmart\u2019s fraud department and asked her about a \u201cfraudulent\u201d $1,400 purchase of an Apple laptop in her name, the Sheriff\u2019s Office said. The woman replied that she did not make the purchase, and she was transferred to several other people before she spoke with a man who identified himself as \u201cU.S. Marshal Adam Peterson.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man told the woman her identity was connected to an abandoned car in Texas that was found with narcotics, cash and \u201cevidence of human trafficking,\u201d the news release said, and claimed there was a federal warrant for her arrest.<\/p>\n
The woman was told she could hire an attorney for $100,000 or participate in a federal investigation \u201cto clear her name,\u201d BSO said. The man claiming to be a U.S. marshal gave the woman badge numbers, case numbers, telephone numbers and fictitious names of people purported to be other government employees.<\/p>\n
At the man\u2019s instruction, the woman converted her financial assets into gold, the news release said. She was told specifically how to package the gold with an account number on the package and to stay on the phone with \u201cPeterson\u201d as she did so.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe victim was given a code to provide a courier she would meet at a gas station to make the exchange,\u201d the Sheriff\u2019s Office said. \u201cThe victim complied before realizing this was a scam. The victim lost family savings accumulated over approximately 33 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detectives identified Mohit as the person who made the exchanges, the Sheriff\u2019s Office said. A red Honda Accord and a gray Jeep SUV were used in the scheme.<\/p>\n
Mohit will face charges in Broward County of scheme to defraud, grand theft on a person 65-years-old or older and unlawful use of a two-way communications device.<\/p>\n
He had not yet been booked into the Broward County jail as of Wednesday evening. Court records were not available Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Sheriff\u2019s Office asks anyone who may be a victim of a similar scam to call Detective Steven Lees at 954-720-2225 or BSO\u2019s non-emergency number at 954-764-4357.<\/p>\n
To avoid falling victim to scams, the Sheriff\u2019s Office urges to never send money or share personal information after an unexpected phone call, text or email and to verify requests by contacting any organization directly through an official phone number or website. If a request seems suspicious, hang up immediately and call local authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 75-year-old Tamarac woman was scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars that took more than 30…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,112,28,249,251,250,114,115,109,4243,147852],"class_list":["post-363756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-social","tag-tamarac","tag-taramac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}