Elderly Man Falls for Fake Pop-Up Accusing Him of Buying Child Porn, Agrees to Hand Over Thousands of Dollars to Scammers

An intricate online scam targeting senior citizens led to a 79-year-old Narragansett man handing over $35K in cash and nearly $135K in gold bars directly to the fraudsters.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Rhode Island shared that Jirui Liu, of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, and Kush J. Patel, of Bridgeport, CT, were arrested and charged for their involvement in an online scam targeting Rhode Island seniors.

Court documents from United States v. Jiri Liu revealed that sent a pop-up message to the elderly Rhode Island man claiming he was under investigation for attempting to buy child pornography. The man called the scammers' number and was convinced his social security number was involved in a money laundering activity. The scammers traveled to the victim's house and were given $35K in cash, which they told the man they would protect while he was investigated.

Days later, the victim handed over more of his savings — $135K worth of gold bars. When the scammers asked him for another $160K in gold, the victim finally contacted police. When Liu arrived to pick up the final payment, police were there to arrest him.

Liu was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. He allegedly worked with Patel, who was arrested on similar charges for another scam involving an elderly victim.

Patel reportedly impersonated a Federal Trade Commission agent to convince a 72-year-old victim that his identity had been stolen and used in connection with drug trafficking, money laundering, and child pornography. Patel convinced the victim to take out nearly $300K in gold bars.

Police arrested the con artist after he arrived in a restaurant parking lot to pick up the victim's third and final gold delivery.