A New York woman has been arrested and extradited to Massachusetts for allegedly scamming a Cape Cod victim out of $46,000, officials said Friday.
Yuxin Fu, 24, of Flushing, Queens, was arrested last week after fleeing the country for her alleged involvement in a scam targeting a resident of Marston Mills, a village in the town of Barnstable, Mass.
Fu was being investigated for an incident that happened nearly two years ago. Detectives believe she posed as a member of the Drug Enforcement Agency and informed the victim that their social security was linked to an investigation in Texas.
She then allegedly instructed the person to “transfer their account funds to a ‘safe’ government account to protect them from being seized,” authorities in Barnstable said in a press release.
When police became aware of the alleged scam in December 2022, a lengthy investigation followed. After “several” search warrants, authorities issued a warrant for her arrest in June 2023.
However, authorities believed Fu had fled from the U.S. to China the previous month. After being sought by police for more than a year, Fu was eventually arrested last week.
She was taken into custody on Sept. 23 at John F. Kennedy Airport as she attempted to re-enter the country, officials said.
Fu was arraigned in Barnstable District Court on Friday on charges of larceny over $1,200 and receiving stolen property over $1,200.
She’s being held on $100,000 bail at the request of the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office.