Hicksville man charged in attempted $13,000 elder scam, Nassau police say

A Hicksville man was arrested Friday after he allegedly tried to scam a 75-year-old man out of $13,000, Nassau police said.

An unknown man who claimed to work for the U.S. Treasury Department allegedly called the 75-year-old man, who lives out of state, and told him to send $13,000 to a FedEx pickup site in Oceanside, police said.

Ronak Patel, 26, allegedly tried to retrieve the package containing the money about 1:30 p.m. Friday, police said.

A FedEx employee asked Patel for identification, and police arrested him when he went to his car to get his driver’s license, police said. He was charged with third-degree attempted grand larceny and 10 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument.

Patel had 10 forged driver’s licenses, police said.

He had been scheduled to be arraigned Saturday in Mineola.

By David Olson

david.olson@newsday.com@DavidOlson11

David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.