CHICAGO (WLS) — Gold has been an investment and form of payment for thousands of years.
Recently, the ABC7 I-Team and ABC News have uncovered a new fraudulent scheme involving gold bars that has resulted in victims losing millions of dollars. Authorities have identified that the scam is being targeted at individuals across the country.
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a warning to consumers, highlighting that victims of this gold scam have collectively reported losses exceeding $100 million. One of the individuals charged in connection with this scam hails from the Chicago area.
One man says he was fooled into handing over $80,000 in gold.
“And two years ago, my wife passed away. And so, it was a pretty fragile time for me,” said Kris Owen.
Owen says he was vulnerable, grieving his wife’s death, when scammers reached out to him.
“It was believable. It was believable enough for me to have done this,” Owen said.
Owen, a former resident of Valparaiso, Indiana, who now resides in Westfield near Indianapolis, fell victim to the scheme. The retiree shared his unfortunate experience of losing $80,000, which constituted a significant portion of his life savings, to the so-called gold scam.
“Yeah, $74,755. And then another check for $5,000. And it went to the gold. That’s correct. It went and then I picked up my gold bars,” Owen said.
It all started with a pop-up message.
“I got the message that I needed to call this number because my computer had been hacked,” Owen said.
After Owen called, he was talking to who he thought was an FBI agent.
“And then, I got a letter that was emailed to me and from a cybersecurity task force that indicated that my name had been implicated and that I needed to secure my personal funds through an FBI program that was that would take the monetary funds, put them in a secure deposit,” Owen said.
He thought the people posing as the FBI would keep his money safe from being confiscated from authorities in Texas, where he was being “framed for a drug crime.”
“And my name had popped up in the San Antonio, Texas, area related to a confiscation of 29 pounds of cocaine,” Owen said.
Owen says after months of calls and texts with that fake FBI agent, he was convinced to take out $80,000 from his savings and buy gold bars.
“I was then told to bring them back to my home to take a picture of them and send that picture to them,” Owen said.
Owen says the scammer then got him to drop the bars off to a courier at an area parking lot.
“I put the package in the back window as required. I asked if he was my agent. He nodded. He never said anything to me. He nodded and drove off,” Owen said. “It was gone, absolutely gone.”
But the con-artists were mining for more gold. He says they kept texting and sent him this “official letter” claiming his $80,000 in gold was safe.
“When they got the gold, they sent me this,” Owen said. “This this was, yes, this was the email that was sent to me from the ‘National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force.’ And it does look like it’s from the FBI.”
Owen got suspicious as requests for money kept coming.
“That’s when I knew that this was a con, that I’d had enough of this,” Owen said.
He called the real FBI, who told him he was scammed.
Then, the FBI and Carmel, Indiana police set up a sting. Owen told the con-artists he was bringing “money” this time. Owen made the drop, and authorities followed the courier, arresting Chicago-area resident 31-year-old Abdul Afan Mohammed.
The U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of Indiana says Mohammed was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud. He entered a not guilty plea. Authorities say Mohammed fled the country and remains a fugitive.
“We’ve had cases all over the country related to this gold bar scheme. In many cases, couriers travel across state lines and far distances,” said FBI Section Chief of Financial Crimes Chris Delzotto.
The FBI says victims lost $126 million nationwide in 2024 alone. Authorities sent investigators overseas.
“The couriers are typically foreign nationals. Typically, India, sometimes China, and a lot of these cases, the tech support pop-up that initiates the scam emanates from a call center in India, so we have a lot of focus in India,” Delzotto said.
So, why gold? Experts say it has held its value through the years. It is easily transferable because small amounts of it are worth a lot of money, and scammers love to melt it down.
Tony Jordan is the owner of Midwest Jewelry and Bullion, the same business where Owen bought his gold.
“It’s awful. I mean, if people worked their whole lives to save money and they just trust people,” Jordan said. “We find out several months later that he had been scammed.”
Jordan says they are vetting people.
“So now, the staff asks, ‘Are you going to keep possession of this? You’re not giving this to somebody to hold for you for safety?’ So, we kind of help to protect them as best we can,” Jordan said.
Jordan said the business is financially OK, but it is tough.
“It’s more embarrassing than anything else,” he said.
ABC7 reached out to the defense attorney for the suspect charged in this case and did not immediately hear back.
You should never click on pop-ups on your computer. If anyone calls, texts or emails claiming to be from the FBI or any government agency, you should not respond. Reach out to that government agency independently and directly from its website.
To watch more on how widespread the gold scam is becoming, you can tune into Good Moring America and ABC News on Tuesday.
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