According to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office, Vipul Thakkar, 53, of Owings Mills, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Circuit Court to multiple charges, including theft and financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult, for his role in a gold bar scam targeting elderly victims.
Thakkar was arrested in July 2024 after attempting to collect $246,500 worth of gold bars from a victim in Bethesda, and investigators linked him to an earlier $40,000 cash pickup from an 80-year-old victim at Leisure World. He faces a maximum of 60 years in prison and is scheduled for sentencing on April 29, 2025.
Montgomery County Police released the following in July, “On Wednesday, July 17, 2024, a 74-year-old Bethesda man contacted the Montgomery County Department of Police Financial Crimes Section to report that he believed he had been scammed after seeing a local news report of a woman losing nearly $1 million dollars in a gold bar scam.
The victim reported that he received an email stating that a suspicious deposit had been made into the victim’s bank account and an unknown suspect instructed the victim to convert his money into gold to protect his assets.
On ten separate occasions between March and June of 2024, the victim purchased a total of over $1.1 million dollars in gold bars and arranged to have the gold picked up by the suspect’s associates.
After making a final purchase of over $240,000 dollars in gold bars, the victim saw the news report and contacted police.
On Wednesday, July 24, a Montgomery County detective communicated with the suspect and arranged a pick-up at the victim’s home. A detective posing as the victim, handed a package to Vipul J. Thakkar, who then got into a car and drove away. Officers stopped Thakkar, and he was arrested.”
