Five Chinese nationals living in California and Nevada have been charged with conspiring with India-based fraudsters in a scheme that defrauded over 2,000 elderly Americans of more than $27 million, according to a federal indictment unsealed this week in San Diego.
The defendants face charges of conspiracy involving wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering. They allegedly reached out to victims through pop-up ads, unsolicited emails, and phone calls. Victims were directed to fake call centers in India, where co-conspirators posing as bankers, government officials, or retailers convinced them to install remote desktop software, granting the scammers access to their computers.
Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego explained, “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.”
Victims sent money through wire transfers or express mail packages filled with cash to locations in Southern California and Nevada. To lend credibility to the scheme, the scammers often directed victims to send money to real businesses, such as CVS Pharmacy, where the defendants collected the packages using fake IDs.
The U.S.-based defendants then laundered the money through cryptocurrency transactions with their India-based co-conspirators, prosecutors allege.
In coordinated raids on 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 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, local police officers, and state and federal prosecutors, worked with the FBI in Los Angeles to identify over 2,000 victims of the scam between 2021 and 2023. These victims collectively sent more than $27 million to the defendants and their co-conspirators, according to prosecutors.
The scheme continued until at least June of this year, as outlined in the indictment.
Tara McGrath, U.S. Attorney for the San Diego area, emphasized the vulnerability of seniors to such schemes. “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.