Neel Patel, photo via MCPD press release
A second man has been arrested as the result of a gold bar scam that attempted to coerce $779,000 worth of gold bars from a Montgomery County resident in March.
Police took the suspect, 23-year-old Neel Patel of Carol Stream, Illinois, into custody on July 23 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport as he was attempting to board a flight to Dublin, Ireland.
On August 6, MCPD detectives extradited Patel to Maryland for his role in the scam, which police say targeted the elderly.
Patel has since been charged with one felony count of theft of more than $100,000 and one associated misdemeanor. His trial is set for September 23.
The crime, which the victim originally reported to Montgomery County Police in March, included perpetrators contacting a victim to tell them that they had been the victim of an identity theft leading to a federal investigation involving drugs and money laundering.
The perpetrators of the scheme then directed the victim to transfer their assets into gold bars. Couriers, posing as FBI agents, would then pick up the gold to take to the US Department of Treasury for safekeeping.
Police suspect Patel of being the first of the two couriers in the scheme. The other suspect, Wenhui Sun of Lake Forest, California, was arrested in Montgomery County.
Sun, like Patel, was also in possession of a plane ticket, though Sun’s would have taken him back to his home state of California. Police arrested Sun on the day of the potential flight.
