BEL AIR, Md. — The thieves didn’t need a weapon to steal more than $18,000 from an 87-year-old widow living at the Village Green condos in Bel Air.
They convinced her to hand it over to them for safe keeping.
But when they got greedy and came back for more…
Hear how police busted con artists in Harford County
“All of the sudden, I look out the window and I see one man on the curb handcuffed,” said Dave Stone, one of the victim’s neighbors, “and then secondly, there was a man in the car and they had arrested him.”
What the pair of Chinese nationals from New York didn’t realize was the victim had second thoughts about emptying out her account and contacted the Harford County Sheriff’s Office.
When the scammers called the victim and told her to stay on the phone as she went to a Freedom Federal Credit Union to make another withdrawal, police were ready for them.
“They asked her how much money she still had in the bank, requested that she withdraw $15,000 from the bank,” said Harford County Sheriff’s Det. Chris Sergent, “We went with her to the bank and the bank worked really well with us. They were able to do audibly what sounded like a bank transaction. They printed off a receipt, which showed the amount of money, which was withdrawn.”
In Focus look at fraud data by age
The scammers wanted a photo of that receipt, another of the cash and one of the box she was placing it in.
It’s too bad they didn’t ask if police would be waiting for them when they came to her condo community to cash in a second time.
The suspects had over $5,000 in cash on them, but that leaves $13,000 missing after a scam, which has become so commonplace investigators have already been contacted by a second potential victim.
“It’s primarily the older people, and you know, it does scare us,” said Stone, “and we don’t exactly know what to do about it.”
Police say your reaction to the initial attempt to convince you that your accounts have been breached is key to avoid being scammed.
“Actually reach out to the bank in person. Go to the police station. Call us,” said Det. Sergent, “Have us come and out and check it out and if there’s nothing going on, then great. That’s a good thing, but if there is, hopefully we can catch it early on and then we can affect a good outcome.”
