Five people have been arrested and charged in connection with a tech support scam that defrauded older individuals out of at least $8 million across ten states, including Arizona.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri announced today that Dariona Lambert, 22, Zhamoniq Stevens, 23, Chintankumar Parekh, 51, Mehul Darji, 41, and Sital Singh, 42, have been indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to the indictment, the defendants targeted elderly victims by falsely claiming their savings and retirement accounts had been compromised. Victims were tricked into transferring funds to the conspirators, sometimes in the form of gold bars.
Parekh, one of the handlers, was responsible for collecting gold bars from victims in multiple states, including Yuma and Scottsdale, Arizona.
In one instance, an 82-year-old victim from St. Louis was convinced by the scammers to buy $250,000 in gold bars, which Lambert attempted to retrieve. Law enforcement agents intercepted her during the handoff.