Rockville man expected to serve five years in prison for gold bar scam targeting victim, 94

Case marks first sentencing resulting from a local gold bar scam conviction in county

December 12, 2024 3:00 p.m.

A Rockville man is expected to serve five years in prison following his sentencing Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court in connection with a gold bar scam that nearly stole about $230,000 from a 94-year-old Silver Spring man, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said Wednesday in a statement.

Circuit Court Judge Margaret Schweitzer sentenced Ravinklejeet Mathon, 26, to 10 years in prison, with all but five years suspended, plus five years of probation upon his release, according to the statement. Mathon’s sentencing is the county’s first resulting from a local gold bar scam conviction.

In October, Mathon pleaded guilty to charges of attempted theft of more than $100,000 and conspiracy to commit theft more than $100,000.

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Mathon’s attorney, Kush Arora, did not immediately respond Wednesday evening to MoCo360’s request for comment.

According to the state’s attorney’s office, state sentencing guidelines “suggested a sentence of probation to one year.” State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in the statement that those guidelines were suggested to “ensure that similarly situated defendants receive similar punishment for crimes they have committed.”

McCarthy noted, however, that sentencing guidelines for non-violent and white-collar crimes are “typically low” and “not designed to deal with crimes of this magnitude or complexity.”

“The gold bar scams are unique due to the level of international, organized crime involved,” McCarthy said. “In addition, there was special vulnerability in this case due to the victim’s advanced age of 94.”

The scam

According to charging documents, Mathon posed as a federal agent who tricked the elderly man into believing his identity had been stolen and his savings were in danger. Mathon told the man he needed to purchase gold bars and later transfer them to a “federal agent” who would keep the gold in a safe until the man was issued a new Social Security number, documents said.

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On April 30, county police responded to the man’s report that he had purchased gold bars and fallen for a phone scam, charging documents said. The man purchased three gold bars with a total value of nearly $230,000. “Unknown suspects” later contacted him to arrange for the bars to be picked up but were unsuccessful in setting up the hand-off.

On May 1, the suspects contacted the man by phone to arrange again for a pickup at the man’s home in Silver Spring, according to charging documents. The suspects “noted that the driver would provide a code before the gold, which had been placed in a package, would be turned over to the driver,” the documents said.

Detectives then helped set up a sting operation to catch the scammer by placing metal hand tools in the cardboard box in which the gold bars had arrived “to give it weight and the feeling of gold,” charging documents said. Then a detective posed as the man at his home and handed off the box to a courier in a Toyota Prius.

“The vehicle then quickly drove away from the residence and was stopped a short time later by [county] detectives on Briggs Chaney Road,” the charging documents said. The driver of the Prius, later identified as Mathon, was taken into custody and interviewed by detectives.

Mathon told detectives he had been directed by a man named Lee to pick up the package while he was traveling to New Jersey from North Carolina, charging documents said. In addition, Mathon told detectives that he lives in Germany and was in the United States to visit family and travel.

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The case is similar to other gold bar scams that have been reported in the county and around the U.S. in the past year. In October, Wenhui Sun, 34, of Lake Arbor, California, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Circuit Court to charges of theft, attempted theft and conspiracy to commit theft. Sun stole more than $800,000 from a resident of Leisure World in Silver Spring in a gold bar scheme, according to the state’s attorney’s office.

Sun was expected to be sentenced on Dec. 9 and 12, however, digital court records indicate those hearings were postponed. A make-up date has not yet been set.

Avoiding the scam

In August, McCarthy hosted a news conference with county police, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations to inform the public about the scams.

“Please do not ever, ever, click on a pop-up ad. … Don’t answer the phone if you don’t recognize the phone number,” McCarthy said at the press conference, referring to two main ways that scammers target individuals. He also said while most of the victims in the county have been older residents, anyone of any age or demographic can be targeted.

Detective Sean Petty of the county police department’s financial crimes division, said at the press conference that county police had identified seven cases involving residents who lost more than a total of $6.3 million in gold bar schemes. He noted that some victims lost money through cryptocurrency conversions and cash pickups as well.

In January, the FBI released a public service announcement warning people to be aware of scammers who may ask them to liquidate their assets into cash or gold and then send a courier to pick up the money or precious metals.

Bill DelBagno, a special agent in the FBI Baltimore Field Office, called the financial scams a “nightmare.”

“People are losing their life savings, their homes, their trust, their security,” DelBagno said at the August press conference.

Authorities are asking families to speak with their elders about gold bar scams and how to best avoid them, including by not clicking on pop-up ads online and not answering phone calls from unknown numbers.

“If you have a role in protecting a senior or if you are a senior yourself, please talk about this with the senior members of your community or your family,” McCarthy said.

Authorities also said it was important to report the crimes to the FBI, which has an internet crime complaint center at ic3.gov. Through the site, the FBI had received more than 250 complaints related to gold bars scams in the months leading into August –involving about $84 million that will likely never be returned, Delbagno said.

Authorities also stressed that law enforcement agencies and government officials will never contact people by phone with threats of arrest or to talk about compromised money. One of the ways scammers have been able to convince victims to participate is by posing as government agents, they said.

“Government agencies will never ask you to collect gold or cash or pay fines to safeguard your money, we will not demand immediate payment,” DelBagno said. “They will not ask for payment in very unusual ways, such as drop-offs of gift cards or cryptocurrency or wire transfers.

“Please, resist the pressure to act quickly. These scammers try to isolate their victims and convey this sense of urgency. Don’t let them. Hang up the phone, call a friend that you trust or a family member, and talk it through,” he said.

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