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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
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and Ed Maria. We talked with one gold
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dealer who stopped a scam. He saved a
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woman almost half a million dollars.
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This is a 1oz gold bar. This has a
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market value of $3,650
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right now.
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Lou Chryney's been in the business of
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selling gold bars and coins for decades.
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You've seen a lot.
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Oh, yeah. He sensed something wasn't
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quite right when a woman recently called
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saying she urgently needed to buy almost
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half a million dollars in gold bars like
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these.
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What made you suspicious?
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Well, so we always recommend coins
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versus bars. In this set of
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circumstance, there was an insistence
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upon bars and it was similar to this
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other thing that happened uh 8 months
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before. The Boston FBI had warned Lou
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about a gold bar scam involving another
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Massachusetts woman. Lou told his
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customer about it and recommended she
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put the gold in a safe deposit box.
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Well, she waffled a little bit that it
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would be in a safe place.
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While waiting for the gold to arrive,
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Lou made a call to the FBI. agent
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stepped in just before his customer was
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going to take an Uber hired by a scammer
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to pick up $460,000
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in gold bars from Lou's store and then
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deliver it to someone in the scheme. Why
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do you think we're seeing scammers
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trying to get gold bars?
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I think it's an easy way to move money
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to the bad guys. Assistant special agent
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in charge of the Boston FBI, James
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Crowley, says they are seeing a spike in
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what they call gold bar courier scams,
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where people are being defrauded out of
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hundreds of thousands of dollars, often
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their life savings by couriers who pick
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up gold bars and cash from their
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victims. Sometimes the drivers are part
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of the fraud, sometimes they're not.
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They put a tremendous pressure to act
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quickly before the person has a chance
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to call a loved one, call a family
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member. Once that money goes to the
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courier, once the gold bars are turned
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over or that bulk cash, that money is
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gone and the person will never see it
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again.
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And the losses are in the millions of
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dollars. From 2023 to May of 2025, the
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FBI Boston documented 103 cases of a
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courier being used to pick up cash or
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gold bars from victims totaling 26
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million.
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Almost all of the victims were over the
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age of 60. In Massachusetts alone, 59
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victims lost $18 million.
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This is pure gold.
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Thanks to Lou, his customer wasn't one
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of them.
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This woman is a very nice woman. She's
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smart, but uh it happened where she was
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being defrauded. And um and I'm just,
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you know, extremely gratified that I
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could help. Now, the FBI says the losses
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are likely higher because many victims
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are ashamed and don't know where to
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report the fraud.
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