A man posing as a federal agent was arrested after trying to con a Montgomery County senior citizen into converting his retirement savings into gold bars, police said.
Just as that senior was about to hand over roughly $230,000 in life's savings, a friend stepped in and convinced him to call police instead.
The suspect identified himself to police as Ravinkle Mathon and said he was a German citizen when police pulled over his Toyota Prius on Briggs Cheney Road.
That stop happened just a short distance from the Silver Spring home where Mathon picked up a box, according to court documents.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
Mathon believed the box was filled with gold bars his victim had purchased. But instead, police said, it was filled with tools, placed there to simulate the same weight. The box was handed to Mathon by a police officer posing as the victim's neighbor.
Mathon was then arrested by Montgomery County police.
His scam began as a phone call, according to Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy. A man pretending to be a federal agent told the victim he was being targeted by a dangerous identity theft ring and needed to convert all of his cash to gold so he could be given a new identity for protection.
U.S. & World
The victim did so. But before the handover, an acquaintance intervened.
"Always have two people aware of your financial decisions," McCarthy said.
A judge ordered Mathon held without bond, McCarthy says.
"We're not even sure who this man really is," McCarthy told News4.
Montgomery County police are warning residents to be on guard.
"Law enforcement will never ask you to convert cash to gold and give it to them," said Shiera Goff, a police spokesperson.
More than a dozen retired Montgomery County residents have been victimized by this scam in the past year or so, officials say.
Less than two months ago, a criminal ring used the same con on a resident of Leisure World in Silver Spring. They stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars from the woman before she notified police. A California man was arrested in that case.
