Yash Shah of Baldwin charged with scamming victims out of cash, gold bars, police say
Yash Shah at First District Court in Central Islip on Thursday. Credit: James Carbone
A Baldwin man allegedly scammed two victims out of nearly $500,000 in cash and gold bars after telling them their computers had been infected with child pornography, Suffolk County police said.
Yash Shah, 25, was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with second- and third-degree grand larceny, and two counts of fifth-degree conspiracy.
The investigation began on June 16 when a 72-year-old Huntington woman received a notice on her computer alerting her it had been compromised and she needed to contact Microsoft, authorities said. The woman followed those instructions and "called who she believed to be Microsoft," and was told her computer contained child pornography and porn sites, police said in a news release.
Following numerous conversations, the woman met a man and gave him $35,000. The woman eventually concluded that she was being scammed, and filed a police report, police said.
Detectives from the Suffolk County Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit investigated and determined Shah was responsible for picking up the money from the scam, according to police.
Detectives received a search warrant for Shah’s phone and identified a 73-year-old Kings Park woman who also was allegedly scammed, out of approximately $430,000, including $277,000 worth of gold bars on July 20, police said. The Kings Park woman also was told she had child pornography on her computer, authorities said.
When law enforcement contacted the woman, she was prepared to deliver an additional $260,000 to the scammers and did not initially believe the detectives were from the Suffolk Police Department, officials said. A family member eventually convinced the woman she was being scammed.
Suffolk County Police Financial Crimes Unit detectives arrested a man for scamming two people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of gold bars and cash in Huntington and Kings Park. Credit: SCPD
Shah will be held overnight at the Third Precinct and was scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip on Thursday.
Detectives are asking anyone who felt they might have been scammed to contact the Financial Crimes Unit at 631-852-6821.
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
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