DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Arrest warrants have been issued in what investigators say is a massive fraud scheme involving gold.
They say the scheme targets senior citizens across the country, and involves jewelry stores in several states.
Channel 2’s Tom Regan was at Malani Jewelers on DeKalb Industrial Way. No one was there Thursday. It’s closed, and after’s yesterday raid, the shelves are cleaned out.
Investigators seized gold and other merchandise as part of what they describe as a massive fraud scheme.
Investigators worked into the night, loading bins of gold jewlery and other potential evidence into a U-Haul truck.
“This is an investigation targeting a trans-national criminal organization operating in the United States,” said Sheriff Jim Skinner of Collin County Sheriff’s Office.
Skinner obtained the warrants for a coordinated raid of three jewelry stores, the one in DeKalb, and two others in Texas and Florida.
“We seized in excess of $80 million worth of gold,” Skinner said.
He says the gold is suspected to be linked to a massive fraud scheme targeting elderly people.
Skinner says the fraudsters, posing as law enforcement, con victims out of their money through threats or claims that their bank accounts are hacked.
“What they are doing is having the victims to convert the cash they take out of the bank account, convert it into gold and then send couriers to pick up the gold,” Skinner said.
He says couriers take the stolen gold to jewelry stores to be laundered and converted into jewelry to be sold to unsuspecting customers or smuggled out of the country.
“It is smelted down and it’s made into bangles and a person can put those on, get on an airplane and leave the country,” Skinner said.
He says hundreds of elderly victims across the country have lost tens of millions of dollars through the gold bar scam.
“We just had a report of a person in Indiana yesterday losing $1.2 million,” Skinner said.
The sheriff tells there are likely victims in the metro Atlanta area.
Regan called the jewelry store during the raid Wednesday, but they had no comment.
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