Man Scammed 2 Suffolk Residents Out Of Combined Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars: Police

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY — A man was arrested Wednesday after Suffolk police said he scammed two women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold bars and cash in Huntington and Kings Park.

A 72-year-old Huntington woman received a notice on her computer on June 16 claiming her
computer had been compromised and she needed to contact Microsoft, police said. The woman called who she believed to be Microsoft, and a person told the woman her computer contained child pornography and porn sites, police said. She spoke with a man multiple times before meeting him and giving him $35,000, police said. The woman eventually believed she was being scammed, and filed a police report, police said.

Financial Crimes Unit detectives said Yash Shah, 25, of Baldwin, was responsible for picking up the money from the scam. After receiving a search warrant on his phone, detectives said a 73-year-old Kings Park woman was scammed out of approximately $430K, including $277K worth of gold bars, on July 20. The woman was also told she had child pornography on her computer, police said.

Detectives contacted the woman, who was about to deliver an additional $260K to the scammers, police said. The woman initially did not believe the detectives were from the Suffolk County Police Department and had to be convinced by a family member that she was being scammed, police said.

Detectives believe Shah is working with other people, the department said.

Shah was charged with one count of second-degree grand larceny, one count of third-degree grand larceny, and two counts of fifth-degree conspiracy.

He was held overnight at the Third Precinct and is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip on Thursday.

Detectives asked anyone who felt they might have been scammed to call the Financial Crimes
Unit at 631-852-6821.