Elderly US woman is swindled of almost RM1.17mil in bogus identity theft inquiry

The victim, 78, said she was first contacted by phone in April and eventually was put in touch with a man calling himself Sean Watson and purporting to be a Drug Enforcement Administration agent. — AP

By convincing her that her identity might have been stolen, a man posing as a federal law enforcement agent persuaded an elderly Covington woman to hand over almost a quarter million dollars to his associates, authorities say.

The scam is described in a sworn affidavit filed Nov 17 in federal court by an FBI agent to arrest one of the associates, Jiaquin Ye of Houston. Authorities booked him with lying to a federal agency about his role in the scheme, which they say was acting as a courier.