A man who took part in scamming a 65-year-old San Diego woman out of more than $200,000 of her life savings was sentenced Wednesday to two years of probation.
Zhi Gao, 22, was arrested last fall when he arrived at the woman’s door to pick up a package of cash, one of several she had handed over to scammers, prosecutors said.
Gao pleaded guilty last month to an attempted burglary count, which included an agreement to probation and a time-served sentence if he agreed to pay $30,000 in restitution to the victim, which has been paid.
Prosecutors said the woman was manipulated by scammers to make major cash withdrawals from her bank and hand her money to Gao and his co- conspirators over the course of several weeks.
During a news conference held last fall to announce the charges against Gao, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said the scam began with a pop-up message that appeared on the woman’s computer. Believing that the message originated from Microsoft, she called a phone number displayed on the pop-up to receive help with her computer, which was frozen. The woman paid scammers $120 to fix her computer.
The scam later moved to a banking-related fraud, in which scammers pretended to be associated with Chase Bank. This time, they alleged that the bank had been alerted to fraud on her account. In order to protect her money, she would have to withdraw it from her account and hand it over to the co- conspirators “so that the money could be secured in a safe account while the fraud division investigated the case for her,” Stephan said.
The victim made multiple withdrawals ranging from $20,000 to $30,000 each time, the DA’s Office said, and gave the cash to couriers who showed up on her doorstep.
Her family eventually caught wind of the suspicious financial activity and contacted police.
Gao was arrested during a sting operation in which he was due to pick up another $30,000 from the victim, prosecutors said.
Stephen said the scams employed in the case were among the most common perpetrated against seniors and said it served as “a compelling reminder to seniors and their families to be aware of the warning signs of a scam and reach out for help.”