NYC man scammed Massachusetts senior out of $480K+

A man from New York is accused of scamming a senior citizen in Massachusetts out of more than $480,000. The suspect, Vishual Kumar, is 23 years old and from Queens. He faced charges in Middlesex Superior Court for extortion, larceny, and conspiracy. Kumar is alleged to have targeted a 72-year-old woman from Newton. Prosecutors say he pretended to be a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. He claimed that her identity had been used to open several illegal bank accounts related to drug trafficking. Kumar told the woman that she was responsible for $2 million in these accounts. To avoid being arrested, the woman was instructed to transfer her assets to the U.S. Treasury. Kumar promised she would later receive a new Social Security number and get her money back. To do this, he told her to buy gold bars and give them to various couriers over a month. Fearing legal trouble, she emptied her retirement savings to buy the gold. The woman's family eventually found out about the scam and contacted the authorities. An undercover FBI agent later caught Kumar during a delivery of gold bars. Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan highlighted how scams often work by building trust and using fake documents. Kumar remains in jail with a bail set at $500,000 and will appear in court again on April 2.