Five people accused of scamming Nassau County residents out of hundreds of thousands of dollars
On Tuesday, Nassau County police arrested two people accused of scamming a 65-year-old Oceanside woman out of $106,000 before she realized what happened.
Suspected thieves were arrested for allegedly scamming Nassau County residents out of hundreds of thousands of dollars this week.
"They'll say to you that your system has been hacked and in order to fix this, you need to contact this number," says Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder. "They'll explain to you that you need to go to the bank to remove some money out of the bank to secure your money."
On Tuesday, Nassau County police arrested two people, 30-year-old Yingliang Chen, of Brooklyn and 29-year-old Zheying Zheng, of Flushing. They're accused of scamming a 65-year-old Oceanside woman out of $106,000 before she realized what happened.
"The final time we went up and we dressed up as the victim and when they went to hand the money, we gave him the money and then we took the car down," says Ryder.
Police say all of the five people arrested this week are in the U.S. illegally and were taken into ICE custody.
But once the money is taken, police say it's hard to track down.
"Definitely a scam ring. It's an international ring. These are coming out of call centers from the Middle East or other places around the world," says Ryder.
Police say they've been talking with banks about these scams.
"When an elderly person comes into the bank and is taking out money three days in a row that she never did before, you've got to stop, you've got to question them," says Ryder.
Police and experts say it's important to be careful with online transfers and accepting contacts.
"If you've said yes to that and you've accepted the contact request, you are suddenly in a situation where there's nothing that's going to stop that money from going to that person," says editor-at-large for TechRadar Lance Ulanoff. "Then you've verified your existence. You verified your number. you are now a target for additional scams."
