A New York man was charged for allegedly being involved in the theft of more than $500,000 worth of gold bars from an elderly resident in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the Ephrata Police Department said.
Zhong Ren, 44, of Brooklyn, New York, was charged on July 10 with multiple offenses, including theft by unlawful taking, criminal conspiracy of theft by deception, and impersonating a public servant.
He was arrested after an elderly resident of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, filed a police report in April about the theft of gold bars valued at $555,892, according to the police department.
Police suspected that Ren was one of the individuals who deceived the victim into using her lifetime investment savings to buy physical gold bars to protect her money from a purported theft threat, which was a fabrication by the scammers….