Five Chinese nationals living in California and Nevada allegedly conspired with India-based fraudsters to bilk more than 2,000 elderly Americans out of more than $27 million using an array of computer and phone scams, according to a federal indictment unsealed this week in San Diego.
The defendants — facing conspiracy charges involving wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering — allegedly made contact with the victims through pop-up ads, unsolicited emails and phone calls, according to the indictment. The victims then contacted phony call centers in India, where alleged co-conspirators posing as bankers, government officials or retailers would often influence the victims to install remote desktop software that gave the fraudsters access to the victims’ computers.
“After building trust with a victim based on fraudulent pretenses, the conspirators used technical support, government impersonation, bank impersonation and/or refund scams to induce victims to send money to other members of the conspiracy, including the five defendants charged in the indictment,” prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego said in a statement.
The victims sent the funds through wire transfers or express mail packages stuffed with cash to locations around Southern California and Nevada, according to the indictment. To add further legitimacy to the scheme, the scammers often had the victims send the money to real businesses, such as a CVS Pharmacy, where the defendants picked up the packages using fake identifications.
The U.S.-based defendants then laundered the money through cryptocurrency transactions with the India-based co-conspirators, prosecutors alleged.
During coordinated raids Wednesday morning in Nevada and Los Angeles County, law enforcement agents arrested four of the defendants and searched their homes. Those taken into custody were lead defendant Zhao “Oscar” Wang, 40, of Henderson, Nevada; Jiandong “Little Tiger” Chen, 40, of Pomona; Jun Li, 40, of West Covina; and Xin Wang, 36, of San Gabriel.
“What I do is picking up packages from CVS with a fake ID,” Wang, the lead defendant, allegedly explained in a text message sent last August, according to prosecutors. “[The packages] contain cash. Laundering money for Indian scam syndicate(s). Large syndicate(s). My bosses launder over one million US dollars in a week.”
The fifth defendant, 29-year-old San Gabriel resident Youfei Gong, was already in custody following his April arrest on related state charges.
The FBI’s San Diego Elder Justice Task Force — which includes FBI agents, police officers from San Diego, Carlsbad and the California Highway Patrol, and state and federal prosecutors — worked with the FBI in Los Angeles to identify more than 2,000 victims of the alleged scam between 2021 and 2023. Those victims sent more than $27 million to the defendants and their co-conspirators, prosecutors said.
The scheme continued until at least June of this year, according to the indictment.
Tara McGrath, U.S. Attorney in the San Diego area, said swindlers target unsuspecting seniors every day in attempts to steal their savings. “We urge everyone to use caution and consult with others before sending money to strangers they know only through phone calls, texts, or a computer,” McGrath said in a statement.
Anyone age 60 or older who believes they have been the victim of financial fraud can seek help through the National Elder Fraud Hotline at (833) 372-8311. Financial scam victims can also report fraud to their local law enforcement agency or to the FBI at www.ic3.gov.
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