Two men are accused of in connection with a scam in Kentucky.
According to the Bourbon County Sheriff’s Office, 29-year-old Mayurkumar Sanjaybhai Patel and 26-year-old Akshay Rai Priyadarshi are charged with conspiracy to commit theft by deception over $10,000.
The sheriff’s office says a victim reported she had been scammed by people portraying themselves as IRS agents.
The victim told the sheriff’s office she had been contacted by email about a hacked account and was provided with a link to click on to help her. Once the link was opened, she was contacted by phone by people portraying themselves as IRS agents and agents from her financial organization.
The victim was told her money was unsafe and she needed to move it into a “federal safety locker” to protect it.
The sheriff’s office says the victim, “believing her money was at risk and thinking she was talking with the IRS,” withdrew money from her account and then deposited it into a BitCoin location. The remaining money was wired to New York to purchase gold bars that would be shipped to the victim.
The scammers told the victim an “agent” would come pick up the gold. We’re told the victim contacted the authorities when the scammers continued to harass the victim about getting the gold.
The sheriff’s office says they contacted the FBI about the situation and, with the agency’s help, the suspects were arrested when they came to pick up the gold.
We’re told Patel and Priyadarshi are college students from Beaver Creek, Ohio, who are in the US on school visas. Both are originally from India.
