A 25-year-old Indian man who was in the US on a student visa has been charged with defrauding elderly people in Rhode Island. Samyag Uday Doshi, who claimed to be a student of Massachusetts University, was arrested in November when he went to make a pick-up of cash from an elderly person who was misled to believe that he had to pay the amount to federal officers to avoid investigations. Doshi told the police that he was just a student and came to pick up money for the first time. But police scanned his phone and found a photo of him opening a box with gold bar in it. Investigators said Doshi then admitted that he had done at least four to five money pick ups before and was to be paid $500 for the one he was going to do when he was arrested. Police believe Doshi is not the mastermind, only a middleman as he told them that he was reporting to a man he believed was in India.

What is the fraud? How was Doshi arrested?

The elderly victim received a voicemail on his cellular phone regarding a phony purchase and was instructed to call a telephone number provided to him to address the issue. When he called the number, scammers pretended to be a federal official and told the elderly man that he was under investigation for a myriad of charges, including money laundering. The scammers said they would help him if he paid them. Over the next three weeks, scammers directed him to make multiple cash withdrawals of tens of thousands of dollars and to then mail the funds to the state to provide them to designated courier members. The victim also tried to purchase gold bars, which alerted the owner of the store that deals with gold. He called the police and reported that an elderly man was trying to buy more than $200,000 in gold bars and was probably being scammed. The police intervened and took care of the transactions on behalf of the victim. When the victim was asked to send a check to Chicago, the investigator worked with a bank to make a fake check. Then the victim was told to withdraw $45,000 in cash and to hand it over to Doshi, the courier person. Investigators went to the meet-up spot and arrested Doshi.