It was as recently as the Scam of the Day for February 23rd that I told you that the Boston office of the FBI had issued a warning scams involving people lured under false pretenses to cash in their savings, buy gold bars and deliver the gold to scammers.  According to recent FBI figures this scam is getting worse with more than $262 million lost to this scam between January and October of 2025.   I described this scam in the Scam of the day for May 7 2024 when I told you about Ravinkle Mathon who was convicted in  Maryland of attempting to scam an elderly man out of $200,000 in an elaborate scam that has increased dramatically in the last year.  The scam began with a phone call from Mathon to an elderly man in which Mathon posed as a federal agent telling the targeted victim that his identity had been stolen and that he needed to protect his savings by withdrawing all of his funds, purchasing gold with the funds and then turn the gold over to the alleged scammer for safe keeping.  Fortunately, a family member of the targeted victim became aware of the scam and notified police who set up a sting and arrested Mathon when he came to collect the gold..

Now six people in Friendswood Texas were arrested and charged with being a part of this type of scam targeting elderly people in Texas, according to the Friendswood Police Department who are still actively investigating the scam which they say stole approximately $2.8 million from elderly Texans and they expect to find more victims.  The police say that the scam typically starts with an overseas call center phone call setting p the scam with the scammers posing as federal agents or bank representatives.  After the victims have been convinced into converting their savings into gold, local couriers collect the gold which is then money laundered with the proceeds being sent back overseas to the original scammers with the local couriers keeping a portion of the proceeds as their cut.

TIPS

The primary thing to keep in mind in order to avoid this scam is to remember that no government agency or legitimate business will ever request that you purchase gold or other precious metals for any purpose and certainly not to protect them from criminals nor will they tell you that you need to provide the gold to government agents for safekeeping.

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