Chinese National in Custody for Allegedly Scamming Elderly Oregon Couple of More Than $3 Million

A 93-year-old Portland man and his 86-year-old wife reported to the FBI last week that they had been scammed of more than $3 million in gold bars at the direction of a man called ‘Michael Lewis.’

Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Kerin was seeking to extend the detention of Biao Lin (27), a Chinese national who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. In court papers,

Kerin says it is suspected that Lin entered the U.S. illegally in 2019 and now has a pending application for legal status. Biao was held in custody yesterday (Monday) on federal fraud charges involving an alleged $3 million scam.

According to court records, Kerin says hackers claiming to be government officials break into the computers of unsuspecting victims, usually the elderly, and convince them to convert their money into gold to be held in safekeeping by the |U.S. Treasury.

Scammers are Predatory Locusts Preying on the Vulnerable

Kerin refers to the criminal organization as a ‘group of predatory locusts who prey on vulnerable people.’ The U.S. attorney says the fraud scheme is destructive, extensive, and exploitative.

According to the court records, Lin flew to Spokane from the East Coast last Thursday. He then drove to Portland where he was arrested by the FBI while he was about to collect more than $400,000 in gold bars from the elderly couple.

Lin is charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He is also said to have collected $580,000 in gold bars earlier this year from an East Coast victim.

Court records show that the FBI arrested two people in Oregon earlier this year after investigations into similar transactions targeting elderly people.

How the Scam Evolved

The Portland case began on June 10, 2024, when the elderly woman was locked out of her trust and IRA accounts. She was notified that her password was not working and shortly after received a call from ‘Christopher Tyler’ posing as an official from the fraud department of her trust account company.

Tyler told the woman her account had been hacked and her Social Security number stolen.

She was then put in touch with ‘Michael Lewis’ posing as someone from the Social Security administration. Lewis told her to install UltraViewer, a software program, on her computer which gave him remote access.

He then instructed her to move her money out of her accounts and she initiated a wire transfer to buy $466,043 gold bars. As directed, the woman also made a second purchase of gold from another bank.

The gold bars had to be wrapped in gift paper and videoed for Lewis to watch. Multiple couriers would arrive at her home on different occasions and hand her a fake U.S. Treasury checks for the value of the gold bars collected at each pickup.

The woman told her son after the last purchase of $462,398 on October 1 and that prompted the FBI investigation.

She was directed to prepare a decoy package to give to the courier on the October 4 pickup while FBI agents waited nearby. When the courier appeared at the door, the woman told him the password she had been given and handed over two decoy boxes. He was arrested by the FBI as he walked away.

Under questioning, Lin told the FBI that he was approached to fly ‘somewhere’ and to pick up ‘something’ by a man in a New York public library for which he would earn $200. He was given a phone and an address for the pickup.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Armistead has ordered Lin to remain in custody pending trial.