A 29-year-old Denver woman is facing charges after Aurora police say she and another woman swapped an elderly, non-English-speaking woman's expensive silver necklace for a cheap imitation outside a busy Aurora grocery store. The victim reportedly had no idea anything was wrong until she got home and realized her real necklace was gone.
Aurora police announced the arrest of Carolina Pavel in a post from the department's official account, according to Aurora Police Dept
on X. Investigators say the theft happened on Aug. 25, when Pavel and a second woman approached the elderly victim outside Pacific Ocean Market and attempted to sell her jewelry, according to
KDVR
. During the encounter, one of the women allegedly placed a cheap necklace around the victim's neck while the other removed and stole her expensive silver one.
The victim did not realize the switch had happened until she returned home, the station's report notes. The theft occurred in the parking lot outside Pacific Ocean Market in Aurora, per Yahoo News, a detail that underscores how quickly the alleged scam played out in a public, everyday setting.
A Scam With a Pattern
This is not an isolated case for Aurora. Police say they have investigated 12 similar blessing-scam incidents so far this year, and that the tactic tends to target seniors who are alone or who speak a foreign language, according to the same Yahoo report. Aurora police have described it as a newer version of the scam spreading around the Denver metro area.
The so-called blessing scam typically relies on convincing a victim to hand over valuables — often jewelry or cash — for some kind of ritual or blessing, only for the items to be swapped out or stolen outright. Aurora's case fits that mold closely, with a cheap necklace substituted for the real one in a matter of moments.
Similar Scams Reported Far Beyond Colorado
The pattern has surfaced well outside Colorado this year. In Vancouver, police reported 13 blessing scams targeting elderly Chinese victims in 2026 alone, with losses exceeding $300,000 in cash, gold and jewelry as of late July, according to the Vancouver Police Department. That figure more than doubled the roughly $200,000 in losses recorded by the same point in 2025, when the department had logged only six such incidents.
Individual cases in Vancouver show just how much can vanish in a single encounter. In one November 2025 incident, three women allegedly convinced a 74-year-old woman to retrieve $14,000 in cash before performing a fake blessing and switching her bag with a decoy, the Vancouver Police Department said in an earlier release. Days later, a separate victim was persuaded to withdraw $120,000 in cash and jewelry from a safety deposit box before it was taken during another staged blessing.
More recent Vancouver cases described by CityNews Vancouver show scammers getting creative with the swap itself. In one June case, an elderly woman handed over roughly $7,000 in cash, gold jewelry and identification only to find her bag had been refilled with water bottles. In another, a woman who withdrew $70,000 from a safety deposit box later discovered her money had been replaced with bags of cornstarch.
San Francisco police have also flagged the scheme, describing how suspects persuade victims to bring valuables — cash and jewelry — to another location under the pretense of a blessing, according to the San Francisco Police Department. The dossier does not establish any connection between the Aurora case and the incidents reported in Vancouver or San Francisco, but the shared method suggests the con is being run — or at least copied — in multiple cities.
Investigation Remains Active
Aurora police describe the investigation into Pavel's case as active and ongoing, and they are seeking information both about this specific incident and about similar blessing-scam thefts in the area. Anyone with information can contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867), and tipsters may remain anonymous.
