A GA couple was about to hand con men $186,000 in gold. Then they helped scam the scammers

The swindle may seem implausible. But for a Houston County couple who almost fell prey, it was nearly a perfect con.

It came close to costing them a hunk of their life savings — $186,000 — which they had agreed to hand over in the form of pure gold.

On Oct. 11, a husband and wife, retirees who live in Perry, noticed a pop-up message on their computer.

The alert warned that their computer had been infected by a virus. The notification included a number to call for help. The couple dialed it.

Someone who answered said, yes, there was, in fact, a virus.

Later, the person asked whether the computer was ever used to access the couple’s bank account.

It was, the couple said.

The person on the phone was part of a cast of cunning characters who detectives now believe were playing roles in an elaborate and potentially lucrative fraud.

The person told the couple that their account might be compromised.

The husband and wife, by now worried about their finances, were then fooled again.

In a slick move, the scammer, still on the phone, said something like, “Let us connect you to your bank. Who do you bank with?”

The couple gave the name of their bank.

“We’ll connect you with their fraud department,” the ever-helpful scammer said.

Soon the couple were speaking to someone else, another fraudster, who pretended to be a representative from their bank. That person confirmed that the couple’s account had been compromised and said there were suspicious transactions pending, which stood to erase nearly $200,000 from their account.

The husband and wife were then passed along by phone to someone they were told was an agent with the Federal Trade Commission. He was not. But he emailed them phony documents and other materials to make them believe he was.

The bogus agent convinced them that the only way to safeguard their money was to transfer $185,916 of it in their account that was in jeopardy and use it to purchase bars of gold.

Then when the gold was in their possession, a supposed undercover FTC agent, would show up at their home in an unmarked car and take the gold to Washington D.C., and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. There it would be verified and the couple would receive a check in the amount they stood to lose from the original “suspicious transactions” linked to their bank account.

That, too, was a lie.

But soon the couple ordered the gold: 1 kilogram Royal Canadian Mint bars from JM Bullion, a legitimate company in Dallas.

Before long, the gold was on its way to Georgia

It would never arrive.

‘Operation Goldfinger’

The couple had by then sensed something wasn’t right and called the police.

An officer met them and made a report of what the pair had been dealing with for the better part of a week. Later that day, on Oct. 16, the officer ducked into Perry police detective Sgt. J.I. “Ike” Wilcox’s office.

The officer explained the scenario to Wilcox, a cop with 16 years’ experience, who hatched a covert plan to scam the scammers. He dubbed it “Operation Goldfinger,” a nod to the title of an early film in the James Bond series that Wilcox is fond of.

It so happened that Wilcox, a Macon native and University of Georgia graduate, is something of an expert on fraud. He teaches courses on scam warning signs and how to spot them. He understands that people, especially older ones, can be hustled.

“A lot of times that demographic is more vulnerable because technology has evolved so much during their lifetime,” Wilcox said.

According to the Department of Justice, in 2021 alone, cyber-related crimes cost Georgians more than $140 million. Last month, the FBI issued a nationwide alert about so-called “Phantom Hacker” scams, ripoffs that typically target senior citizens and are akin to the one aimed at the Perry couple.

Schemers often pretend to be representatives of well-known companies. In the Perry couple’s case, the initial scammer posed as someone from Microsoft.

The con artists typically present their prospective victims with a scenario that involves the victims supposedly winning a prize or facing a dire problem, which creates a sense of urgency that gets victims emotionally involved, fearful or both.

The victims are then pressured to act quickly, Wilcox said, and make some form of urgent payment to remedy the ginned-up problem.

It is unclear how the virus message showed up on the Perry couple’s computer earlier this month, but the culprit could be malicious software that was unwittingly clicked on.

With Wilcox and others in the police department on the case, a sting to ensnare the crooks came together swiftly.

The gold shipment, unbeknownst to the scammers, was routed back to the seller. The couple received a full refund. But the scammers were strung along, believing the Perry couple was about to receive the gold.

The couple, with detectives’ help, played along through numerous phone conversations, hoping the scammers would send their courier. The pair spent hours in Wilcox’s office.

“It was,” he said, “a fearful and emotional time, but they’re very resilient folks. My hat’s off to them. I think they handled it better than most people could have. They were calm as they could be ... and obviously eager to help.”

‘Lightning speed’

On Oct. 19, the scammers arranged for a courier to show up at the couple’s house to collect the gold.

Police officers in marked and unmarked cars were posted nearby.

Wilcox was inside the couple’s home.

They were on the phone with one of the con artists, now playacting themselves as hapless victims.

Still, there was no way to be sure the courier would show. His arrival time changed multiple times.

But then a midsize SUV, likely a rental, wheeled up at the couple’s house.

The police have since charged the man inside it, Gurdev Singh, 31, of Stockton, California, with criminal attempt to commit theft by deception and exploitation of elder persons.

It was possible Singh had flown into Atlanta and driven to Perry.

As of Monday, the case remained under investigation.

Detectives were trying to track down others involved.

The police have also learned of a similar case where scammers were successful.

In the moments before Singh was collared, cop cars swooped in at what Wilcox later described as “lightning speed.”

Wilcox, who had by then made his way to Singh’s SUV, informed Singh that he was under arrest.

“I could safely describe his reaction,” the detective recalled, “as genuine surprise.”