Scammers plead guilty after duping Carlsbad woman into converting life savings into gold

Federal courthouse in downtown San Diego File photo by Chris Stone Times of San Diego Two men who took part in scamming an elderly Carlsbad woman out of nearly million have pleaded guilty to federal charges Prosecutors say scammers convinced the victim her bank account information had been compromised and that her money needed to be transferred into gold bars then handed over to others for apparent safekeeping After the woman received a pop-up on her computer that stated she d been hacked fraudsters posing as establishment bank and tech advocacy employees had the woman send million in wire transfers to a San Marcos precious metal business according to the U S Attorney s Office She then handed the purchased precious metals which mostly consisted of gold to scammers for supposed safekeeping according to prosecutors who announced the woman had been narrated the gold bars would be sent to a secure U S Treasury locker Prosecutors disclosed the scammers reached out to her again in February of last year but the victim contacted the FBI this time and a fake gold delivery was set up The victim gave a package that the scammers presumed contained in gold to Alexander Charles James of Los Angeles who later handed the package off to Xilin Sun of Ontario Sun was arrested and officers ascertained the package of fake gold bars plus another package containing nearly from a different victim prosecutors declared Sun pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiracy to commit money laundering while James pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to commit wire fraud Both men are slated to be sentenced in February