Up next in 10
Gold Bar Scam: Dealer Saves Woman $460,000 From Fraud #shorts
Sep 17, 2025
A gold dealer sensed something wasn't right when a woman urgently needed to buy almost half a million dollars in gold bars. The FBI stepped in just before the customer was going to hand over the gold to a scammer. #gold #scam #FBI #fraud #money
View Video Transcript
0:00
and Ed Maria. We talked with one gold
0:02
dealer who stopped a scam. He saved a
0:05
woman almost half a million dollars.
0:08
This is a 1oz gold bar. This has a
0:11
market value of $3,650
0:15
right now.
0:15
Lou Chryney's been in the business of
0:17
selling gold bars and coins for decades.
0:20
You've seen a lot.
0:21
Oh, yeah. He sensed something wasn't
0:24
quite right when a woman recently called
0:26
saying she urgently needed to buy almost
0:29
half a million dollars in gold bars like
0:32
these.
0:33
What made you suspicious?
0:35
Well, so we always recommend coins
0:38
versus bars. In this set of
0:40
circumstance, there was an insistence
0:42
upon bars and it was similar to this
0:46
other thing that happened uh 8 months
0:49
before. The Boston FBI had warned Lou
0:51
about a gold bar scam involving another
0:54
Massachusetts woman. Lou told his
0:56
customer about it and recommended she
0:59
put the gold in a safe deposit box.
1:02
Well, she waffled a little bit that it
1:04
would be in a safe place.
1:05
While waiting for the gold to arrive,
1:07
Lou made a call to the FBI. agent
1:10
stepped in just before his customer was
1:12
going to take an Uber hired by a scammer
1:15
to pick up $460,000
1:18
in gold bars from Lou's store and then
1:20
deliver it to someone in the scheme. Why
1:23
do you think we're seeing scammers
1:25
trying to get gold bars?
1:27
I think it's an easy way to move money
1:29
to the bad guys. Assistant special agent
1:32
in charge of the Boston FBI, James
1:34
Crowley, says they are seeing a spike in
1:37
what they call gold bar courier scams,
1:40
where people are being defrauded out of
1:42
hundreds of thousands of dollars, often
1:44
their life savings by couriers who pick
1:47
up gold bars and cash from their
1:49
victims. Sometimes the drivers are part
1:51
of the fraud, sometimes they're not.
1:53
They put a tremendous pressure to act
1:55
quickly before the person has a chance
1:57
to call a loved one, call a family
1:58
member. Once that money goes to the
2:00
courier, once the gold bars are turned
2:02
over or that bulk cash, that money is
2:04
gone and the person will never see it
2:05
again.
2:06
And the losses are in the millions of
2:08
dollars. From 2023 to May of 2025, the
2:12
FBI Boston documented 103 cases of a
2:16
courier being used to pick up cash or
2:18
gold bars from victims totaling 26
2:22
million.
2:24
Almost all of the victims were over the
2:26
age of 60. In Massachusetts alone, 59
2:30
victims lost $18 million.
2:33
This is pure gold.
2:34
Thanks to Lou, his customer wasn't one
2:37
of them.
2:37
This woman is a very nice woman. She's
2:40
smart, but uh it happened where she was
2:44
being defrauded. And um and I'm just,
2:47
you know, extremely gratified that I
2:49
could help. Now, the FBI says the losses
2:52
are likely higher because many victims
2:54
are ashamed and don't know where to
2:56
report the fraud.
#Computers & Electronics
#Finance
#Law Enforcement