A Douglas County couple has their retirement savings back after losing 35 gold bars worth $158,000 to a scammer posing as a federal agent. The investigation led authorities across state lines to recover the gold in Illinois.
According to WOWT, Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson and fraud investigator Michael Dechellis flew to Sterling, Illinois, with federal cooperation to retrieve the couple's money. “We flew out to Sterling, Illinois, and picked up these good folks' retirement savings,” Hanson said. A Homeland Security pilot helped get the pair of investigators there, according to the station's report.
The scammer threatened the couple with a government warrant while posing as a federal agent, according to WOWT. The victims withdrew money from their retirement account and were told to convert it into gold.
A Courier, a Parking Lot and a Secret Password
WOWT reported that the scammer asked the couple to send a photo proving they had bought the 35 bars. The couple then met a courier in a public parking lot and used a secret password to make the exchange, the station reported.
The courier's rental car, captured on security cameras, helped investigators trace the handoff, according to WOWT. The station reported that Dechellis said investigators used images of the car and license plate reader cameras to identify the rental vehicle checked out when the courier flew into Omaha.
Nationwide Alert Leads to Illinois Traffic Stop
The vehicle identification led to a nationwide alert and a traffic stop in Illinois, where authorities seized the gold, WOWT reported. The man told police he was delivering the bars to a Chicago motel and was released after making that statement. Douglas County has since obtained a warrant for his arrest, according to the station.
Investigators believe the same courier may have collected money from scam victims in five different parts of the United States, Dechellis told WOWT. The case may therefore be part of a wider operation moving victims' money across state lines.
Part of a Growing National Pattern
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center warns that the U.S. government and legitimate businesses will never ask people to purchase gold or other precious metals. It directs victims to report suspicious activity to IC3.
Similar schemes have surfaced elsewhere this year. In Pennsylvania, police said a multi-state gold bar scam conned victims there and as far west as Washington state out of $6.5 million, according to PennLive. That reporting detailed a Maryland woman who turned over roughly $275,000 in gold coins in September, a Maryland man who handed over about $278,000 in gold in August, an 87-year-old Mechanicsburg woman who lost $1.5 million, and a 74-year-old McKean County woman who lost $259,000.
The NYPD's Financial Crimes Task Force has issued its own warnings about a nationwide version of the scheme, telling ABC News it believes there are hundreds of victims nationally with losses exceeding $100 million. In that reporting, investigators described couriers who often show up at a victim's home to collect gold bars while the victim stays on the phone with the scammer.
What federal data and guidance show
According to the Federal Trade Commission, reports filed by older adults who lost $10,000 or more to business- or government-imposter scams rose from 1,790 in 2020 to 8,269 in 2024; those figures count reports, not all scams. In 2024, gold was mentioned in about 5% of business- and government-imposter reports involving losses of at least $10,000, and about 21% of those involving losses over $100,000.
The FBI Boston Division said IC3 recorded $4.885 billion in losses from 147,127 elder-fraud complaints in 2024 and cautioned that reported figures likely undercount the problem. Those figures cover reported elder fraud broadly, while the FTC figures above focus on older adults' reports about business- and government-imposter scams with specified loss amounts.
A 78-year-old woman in Marion, Illinois, lost $318,000 in a similar gold-bar scam involving callers posing as federal agents, CBS Chicago reported. The Douglas County couple's gold, by contrast, was recovered and returned.
