The Tarrant County District Attorney said police have seized more than $130 million in gold linked to this international criminal effort. <\/p>\n
FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 An international gold theft scheme is stripping older adults of their life savings, and the Tarrant County District Attorney is sounding the alarm.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t fall for this scam,\u201d Phil Sorrells, the county DA, said. \u201cPeople have lost everything. Don\u2019t be the next victim.\u201d<\/p>\n
Law enforcement officials have seized more than $130 million in gold linked to this international criminal effort, according to a press release from the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Nearly two dozen people have been indicted in relation to these scams, according to the press release. Those indicted range from couriers who collected gold or cash from victims to jewelry store owners who would melt down the stolen goods to be smuggled to India, the DA said.<\/p>\n
The schemes typically begin in overseas call centers where scammers contact older adults in Tarrant County and through the U.S. The scammers falsely claim that the victim’s bank account, Social Security number or personal information has been compromised.<\/p>\n
Victims are then told to purchase gold bars, buy crypto currency or withdraw most of their money. Couriers posing as federal agents then show up to collect the funds. Once the scammers take the money, it\u2019s gone, the DA said.<\/p>\n
One victim lost $2 million in the scam, according to the press release.<\/p>\n
The DA is advising people against providing financial information over the phone. Sorrells also said law enforcement officials will never ask for money and that individuals should hang up on suspicious calls and call their bank immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tarrant County District Attorney said police have seized more than $130 million in gold linked to this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-264940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}