A 21-year-old Jacksonville man is facing multiple felony charges after investigators accused him of posing as a U.S. Marshal to help drain more than $300,000 in gold from a 75-year-old Tamarac woman. Mohit Mohit was booked into the Bradford County jail on a Broward County warrant, held without bond, as detectives say the victim lost family savings she had built up over roughly 33 years.
According to WPLG Local 10, the Broward Sheriff’s Office opened its investigation last month after the Tamarac woman came forward to report she had been defrauded. Detectives say they developed probable cause to arrest Mohit and describe him as an active and willing participant in what they call a large-scale, nationwide organized fraud scheme.
How the Scam Allegedly Unfolded
Investigators say the scheme began with a call from someone claiming to work in Walmart’s fraud department, who told the victim a fraudulent $1,400 Apple laptop purchase had been made in her name. She was then transferred to several other people before reaching a man identifying himself as U.S. Marshal Adam Peterson. He allegedly told her a federal arrest warrant had been issued against her and that her identity had been linked to an abandoned vehicle in Texas containing narcotics, cash and evidence of human trafficking.
The callers allegedly gave the victim a choice: hire an attorney for $100,000 or cooperate with what they described as a federal investigation. She was instructed to liquidate her financial assets and convert the money into gold, while the scheme’s operators used fake badge numbers, case numbers, phone numbers and fictitious government-employee names to maintain the ruse.
The Gas Station Handoff
Once the gold was purchased, the operation moved to a public handoff, according to BocaNewsNow.com, which cited Broward Sheriff’s Office details on the exchange. The victim was told to package the gold, write an account number on the parcel and stay on the phone continuously with the man posing as “Marshal Peterson” until she handed the package to a courier at a gas station using a specific code word…