A California man is being held without bond Wednesday in connection with his alleged involvement in a scheme to steal more than $700,000 in gold bars from a Leisure World resident.
Wenhui Sun, 34, was charged with theft of $100,000 or more and attempted theft of $100,000 or more, according to digital court records.
The victim, who was not publicly identified, is an “elderly” woman who lives in Leisure World, a Silver Spring gated community for adults age 55 and older, charging documents indicated. The documents did not state the woman’s age.
In the District Court of Maryland in Rockville, Judge Victor Del Pino said he decided to hold Sun without bond because he is a “flight risk” and “a danger to the community.” If convicted, Sun faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and/or a fine of $25,000, the judge said in court.
Sun was represented by a public defender who argued that since he lives in California, he could get a hotel room in the area to be supervised until trial, but the judge disagreed.
According to the charging documents, the woman said she received a call in late February from someone claiming to be “Mark Cooper” from the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of the Inspector General. Cooper told her that “she was the victim of identity theft which led to a federal investigation involving drugs and money laundering,” charging documents stated.
Then, the woman was contacted by someone who claimed to be “Officer David Freeman” who told her that he would help her get a new Social Security number and provide her with witness protection, but only if she “fully cooperated,” charging documents said.
She was instructed to purchase gold bars from JM Bullion, an online retailer of gold, silver, platinum and copper products, according to charging documents, and was told the bars would be “turned over to FBI agents who would get the bars and place them into the U.S. Department of Treasury.”
The victim then wired more than $331,000 to JM Bullion on Feb. 21 to purchase the gold bars, and on March 5, she was told to meet a courier in a Walgreens parking lot in Silver Spring to hand over the bars. The courier, later identified as Sun, then drove away with the gold bars, according to charging documents.
On March 6, the woman was told to purchase more gold bars, and she wired more than $457,000 to JM Bullion, according to charging documents. Two days later, she met the courier in a parking lot on Gleneagles Drive, within Leisure World, who once again drove away with the gold after the exchange.
After her second interaction with the courier, the victim “realized she was being scammed,” and that the gold had been stolen, charging documents said. She informed Montgomery County police about the thefts and started working with Financial Crime Detectives in the investigation, charging documents said.
The detectives helped her fabricate documents to send to the scammers to make them believe she purchased more than $300,000 worth of gold bars for them to pick up, according to charging documents.
On Monday, a detective posed as the victim and put a box containing packing paper into the back seat of the courier’s vehicle in the Leisure World parking lot, charging documents said.
After leaving the parking lot, Sun was stopped, arrested and transported to police headquarters in Gaithersburg for questioning, according to charging documents.
According to the documents, Sun was born in China and told police that a friend in China “directed him to drive to Maryland from New York, pick up the package and return to New York,” and he admitted to picking up the package but claimed that he did not know what was in the box.
Since January, he said he has traveled to Tennessee, Montana, New York and Maryland, but claimed that he’s only picked up packages in Maryland, charging documents stated.
“There have been similar gold bar scams occurring across the United States, with international connections,” charging documents stated.
Assistant State’s Attorney Hannah Gleason said in court that there have been a dozen similar cases reported in Montgomery County over the past six months, but this is the first one in which police have made an arrest.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said that $55 million has been stolen from victims nationwide in scams like this, and 5 million to 6 million from 12 victims in Montgomery County.
“If you’re a member of the senior community, there are people out there posing as government agents, trying to make you think that you might be in trouble or that you’ve been scammed,” McCarthy said after the bond hearing. “Please be on the lookout for anybody who’s asking you about precious metals and jewelry.”
McCarthy said that scammers are asking for gold bars because they are “impossible to track” and have a “universal value” across countries with different currencies.