A 22-year-old South Carolina man is sitting in the Jones County jail after being caught in the act of attempting to take money from an elderly couple.
Bhargav G. Patel, 22, was arrested March 20 and charged with two counts of criminal attempt to commit a felony, elder abuse and exploitation.
Patel is currently being held without bail.
A report of the arrest by Jones County Sheriff’s Deputy Jared Marcum states he was dispatched to the victims’ residence in the southern part of the county the afternoon of March 11.
The caller reporting the scam attempt was the son of the victims who arrived at his parents’ home just in time to stop the handover of thousands of dollars from their bank account.
Marcum said the husband had been convinced that the person he was talking to was investigating fraud at his financial institution. The victim withdrew all the money from his account in $100 bills and was prepared to hand the money to the party sent to pick it up.
The pick-up person fled the scene when the son arrived and started taking pictures of the car and license plate. The son pursued the vehicle and attempted to stop it.
The deputy arrived at the home of the victims while the husband was on the phone with the scammer.
Marcum said he took the phone and was told by the caller that he was with Microsoft and then claimed to be a state investigator. When the deputy refused to put the victim back on the phone, the scammer hung up.
When the son returned to the home, he told Marcum and JCSO Sgt.
Travis Walker about the pursuit, and the officers retraced the route.
Marcum said they saw evidence of the vehicle losing control multiple times and looked for a crash site but were unsuccessful.
Offender arrest
Jones County Sheriff Butch Reece announced the arrest of the pickup driver in a March 21 Facebook Post.
“We post a lot about our citizens getting scammed to warn others.
Unfortunately, we are often unable to identify or arrest those responsible since they use methods to hide their identities or are in other counties. Today, we are happy to report that we’ve managed to successfully catch a scammer.”
Reece said JCSO investigators were able to identify the driver of the vehicle, Bhargav Patel, a resident of South Carolina. With the help of the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office there, Patel was taken into custody.
He was extradited to Georgia and remains in custody at the Jones County Sheriff’s Office.
Art of the scam
A family member of the victims shared how the scam worked. It started with the purchase of a new computer for the elderly couple that was carefully set up to be secure.
Only three items were placed on the computer, including access to a bank account, which required two-step verification to open.
Feeling secure about the setup, the family member did not account for the possibility of a message popping up claiming to be from Microsoft about a virus being found.
The victim called the number on the message and did not doubt he was talking to a person from Microsoft, who was “the nicest man he had ever talked to.”
That person convinced him to help with the investigation of fraud.
The victim did not hesitate to give the scammer all of his information, including account numbers. The scammer was a professional and apparently researched the financial institution. He even knew the names of the people working at the branch. He took control of the victim’s computer and created a dummy screen, which gave the appearance of money being fraudulently with drawn from the account.
The victim went to the branch and dutifully followed instructions, withdrawing over $40,000 in $100 bills. It does not appear that the withdrawal was questioned by the teller.
He took a picture of the money and placed it in a cardboard box as instructed, ready for pick up.
A family member happened to call, and the wife described what a day they had, and that they were waiting for a courier to pick up the money.
The family member was over 30 miles away but managed to get in touch with the brother who lived close by.
When the “courier” arrived, the brother took pictures and then attempted to block the car in waiting for law enforcement. He chased the car and said he was able to knock it into a ditch several times. Somehow the driver gained control, and the brother lost contact.
