Scammer used porn claim to con 2 Long Island women out of thousands in cash, gold bars: Police
SUFFOLK COUNTY, New York (WABC) -- Police in Suffolk County arrested a man for allegedly scamming two women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars.
Police say that Yash Shah, 25, of Baldwin was the man picking up cash and gold from his victims.
In the first scam back on June 16, a 72-year-old woman in Huntington received a notice on her computer that her device had been compromised and she needed to contact Microsoft.
She contacted who she believed to be Microsoft, and a person told the woman, her computer contained child pornography and porn sites.
After numerous conversations, she met Shah and gave him $35,000.
Eventually, she came to realize that she was being scammed and filed a police report.
She was able to take a picture of Shah, his car and license plate.
After receiving a search warrant on Shah's phone, detectives identified a 73-year-old Kings Park woman who was scammed out of approximately $430,000, including $277,000 worth of gold bars on July 20.
The woman was also told she had child pornography on her computer.
Detectives contacted the woman, who was about to deliver an additional $260,000 to the scammer.
The woman initially did not believe the detectives were from the Suffolk County Police Department and had to be convinced by a family member that she was being scammed.
Detectives believe Shah is working with other people.
Shah is charged with grand larceny in the second degree, and grand larceny in the third degree, along with two counts of conspiracy in the fifth degree.
After his arraignment, Shah's attorney stopped his client from speaking.
"Mr. Shah, we believe has also been a victim of this entire scam," Shah's attorney Nicholas Ramcharitar said. "Mr. Shaw was taken advantage of by picking up money, however, Mr. Shaw did it privately."
Cyber security experts say there are warning signs.
"We have to realize that cyber criminals prey on our emotions, fear of missing out, fear of urgency. So that is one sign," a cyber security expert told Eyewitness News.
Detectives are asking anyone who felt they might have been scammed to contact the Financial Crimes Unit at 631-852-6821.
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