Cherokee County woman defrauded of $200K in gold by international scam ring
CHEROKEE COUNTY, Ga. - The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office says one of its residents was taken for hundreds of thousands of dollars by a scam the likes of which it has never encountered before.
Deputies say they have one of the crooks responsible in custody. The sheriff’s office shared video of the arrest which took place last Friday.
Investigators say 27-year-old Parth Patel tried to scam an 80-year-old woman from Cherokee County out of $200,000 worth of gold.
Patel is described by investigators as a "lower-level associate" in a much larger criminal organization based out of the United Kingdom and India.
"This is a large international ring that is operating outside the United States, but stealing from citizens in the United States," said Capt. Jay Baker with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.
Baker says this group targeted the victim for weeks.
International scam hits Cherokee County
The crooks falsely claimed her identity had been stolen, and they wanted to help secure her assets, according to investigators. It quickly escalated from $1,500 in gift cards to a $50,000 wire transfer to a New York bank.
"This is a very sad situation because the victim lost so much money before contacting us … this is where the scam is a little bit different than previous scams," Baker said.
Deputies say the scammers went on to claim they worked with the U.S. Treasury and convinced her to buy $100,000 worth of gold, meet with one of them and deliver it to them so they could "safeguard" her assets.
After she did that, they asked her to do it again, this time to collect $200,000 worth of gold.
The victim finally became suspicious and told a family member, who called the sheriff's office.
"We met with the victim, continued communicating with the suspect by phone and agreed to meet with him. And this was last Friday. A suspect showed up at the location and approached the vehicle, and he was placed in custody," Baker said.
Through that sting operation, they were able to arrest Patel. Then, working with the FBI, Baker says they were able to discover Patel was part of that international criminal ring.
"They've got several associates that come into the United States and travel around to multiple cities collecting gold and cash from U.S. citizens that are willing to give it to them," Baker said.
Scam red flags
Baker says this is the first time they have seen someone come in person to collect money they have scammed a victim for.
"It's very, very rare for someone to get charged and placed in custody for these types of scams… very, very rare for someone to show up. And this guy came from Canada. He was not a U.S. citizen, he came here through the border and went to multiple locations before he came to Cherokee County collecting money from other victims," Baker said.
They were unable to recover the victim’s money.
Baker said they want people to be aware of these scams and have conversations with their elderly relatives about them.
"No one from the government or law enforcement is going to call you and ask for you to make a payment, much less with gift cards. That's another red flag. Certainly, we're going to collect gold or cash," Baker said.
He says it is also a good idea not to accept calls from numbers you don’t recognize or call the agency who they claim to be to verify the call.
