Bethesda senior scammed out of $1 million in gold bars
Vipul Thakkar, 52, of Owings Mills, Md. Photo via Montgomery County Police Department.
BETHESDA, Md. (FOX 5 DC) - A 74-year-old man from Bethesda has fallen victim to a gold bar scam that has been plaguing Montgomery County.
According to court documents, the elderly man was contacted by a scammer posing as a representative from the Federal Trade Commission.
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'Gold bar scam': Authorities warn of new con costing elderly victims millions
Investigators in Montgomery County say criminals have conned elderly victims out of millions of dollars by convincing them to convert their cash into gold bars.
Over a series of nine trips to a local gold store, the man converted more than a million dollars into gold bars.
He was on the verge of delivering the gold to the scammer when he saw a news story about a similar scam in Montgomery County, which prompted him to contact the police.
Authorities set up a sting operation and subsequently arrested 52-year-old Vipul Thakkar.
Thakkar is scheduled for a bond hearing Friday.
This incident is part of a larger trend in Montgomery County, where dozens of residents have fallen victim to this specific scam in recent months, with some losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.