Gold bar scam sweeping Wisconsin, costing residents their life savings

WISCONSIN — In a quiet part of northwestern Wisconsin where the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers meet, a woman who doesn’t want to be identified but wants to share her story counts the receipts on her kitchen table..

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“$134,000,” she says. “And this sheet, then $298,768.”

The receipts are for gold bars that she purchased after scammers convinced her that her bank account was hacked. A grand total of $433,279.53 was taken from the Prescott, Wisconsin, woman, mainly from her retirement account after almost 40 years of office work.

She is not alone. Across the state of Wisconsin, 49 people have reported to the FBI they were caught up in the scam, losing a total of roughly $13 million, an average of more than a quarter-million per person.

Here’s how it works: People receive a phone call claiming their bank accounts are hacked and that to protect their money, they need to invest in gold. From there, they convince the person that it is safer to give them the gold to protect it, adding that it is going to the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. Then, a courier comes to their house to pick up the gold bar, and the gold is never seen again.

This woman’s case started with an email on her iPad from someone claiming to be from Apple, saying her IP address had been stolen.

“I thought, I have an Apple phone, I have an Apple iPad,” she said. “So, I thought it was legitimate.”

Once she called, she talked with someone falsely claiming to be Alvaro Bedoya, the head of the Federal Trade Commission. The person said her identity was stolen, she was in witness protection, and someone had gotten into her bank accounts. Any time they got disconnected from the phone, they called back immediately. In the messages she played for 12 News Investigates, someone on the other end claimed to be Bedoya but couldn’t say his name correctly.

“I am in the office, ma’am, and I want to talk to you,” the man on the voicemail said. “So, please answer the call or call us back.”

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She was instructed to tell the bank tellers and others that she was helping a family member invest in a business. Once she wired the cash to buy the gold bars, a courier was sent to her house to pick them up.

“He never said nothing to me. I never said nothing to him,” she said.

He is Gourav Patel. Police said he went twice to her house in Prescott to pick up the gold bars. Police arrested Patel in a sting operation in Northern Minnesota and linked him back to her case in Prescott because boxes found in his car that once contained the gold bars were addressed to her.

“The first trial I had, when he walked into the courtroom, I said, ‘That’s him,'” she told 12 News Investigates.

Prescott Police Lt. Kristopher Stewart led the investigation and discovered just how far Patel was traveling.

“You could see in there he was traveling through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana,” Lt. Stewart said. “He was traveling around the upper Midwest.”

The woman stopped participating in the scam and reported it to the police after she received a phone call from someone she thought was on the inside telling her it was a scam.

In Waukesha, police also arrested a courier. Junjie Liang is accused of scamming a woman out of more than $700,000 in cashier checks and gold bars. The criminal complaint states the victim withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars from Waukesha State Bank, bought gold bars at a coin and gold shop, and picked them up from her Waukesha home. Liang was traveling across the country, flying from Houston to Chicago on the day police arrested him in Waukesha. Liang is set for trial in January.

“The high-level view is individuals are preying on the men and women of this state through fear,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Michael Hensle.

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Scammers typically target people who are older and have more savings, according to Hensle.

“If you think about people’s livelihoods, right? I mean, we have people who are involved in these schemes who give money to these couriers who lose their entire life savings,” he added.

In these two cases, police arrested the couriers who were at the bottom of the food chain in a cross-country scam that likely originated overseas.

“There’s a huge percentage of these fraud schemes that are perpetuated by nation-state actors, other countries, and individuals within those countries,” Hensle added, saying the FBI is working to catch others and not just the couriers.

“That’s our goal in every one of our cases,” he said.

Patel pleaded guilty in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. In his sentencing in Pierce County, Wisconsin, he told the woman he was sorry and was ordered to pay back the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I know it’s [a] pretty big amount,” he said in court, according to transcripts obtained by 12 News Investigates. “I can try to at least make it right.”

After 233 days in jail, Patel was given probation and deported back to India. The woman still hasn’t gotten any of the money back. In most cases, the likelihood of anyone getting money or gold back is extremely low.

“It did put a strain on me for sure,” she said. “It made me worried. I told my financial advisor I’m afraid to go to the grocery store and write out a check because I might not have enough money in my account.”

She attended every court appearance for Patel.

“I wanted him to know that I didn’t think this was right,” she said. “You know, how could people do this to other people?”

How to protect yourself Government officials will never request that you buy gold or other precious metals, according to the FBI. Do not allow people you don’t know to have access to your computer or personal information. Do not contact or call telephone numbers in pop-up windows, text messages, or emails.

“If you believe your bank has contacted you, hang up the phone from the person who called and call them back,” Hensle said. “Say, ‘Hey, did you just call me?’ Nine times out of 10, you’ll find they didn’t call you.”

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