First came the suspicious, unexpected text message.
Included in the communication was a return phone number and a plea to call “immediately.”
By evening’s end, a frazzled Ventura senior citizen — during a cloak-and-dagger assignation — had uttered a secret code to a person who claimed to be law enforcement, then handed him $25,000.
It was the culmination of a well-executed scam — so successful that the San Gabriel Valley pair behind the scheme decided to try it again, authorities said.
They contacted the same Ventura senior, and this time, they asked for double, authorities said.
But the victim, realizing he’d been duped, had reached out to police. And the scammers contacted him right when he was in the middle of an interview with detectives, authorities said.
In the end, Shaohua Sun, 39, of Monterey Park and Yanwen Gu, 40, of Rosemead were arrested by Ventura police detectives and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit elder abuse. The charge carried special allegations of the victim being particularly vulnerable and crimes indicating planning, sophistication and professionalism.
Sun pleaded guilty Thursday and paid back $25,000; Gu pleaded guilty Monday. The Chinese natives are currently incarcerated at the Ventura County Main Jail and the Todd Road Jail, respectively, and face up to four years’ imprisonment followed by two years of probation.
Gu will be sentenced in Ventura County Superior Court on June 9, and Sun follows on June 12.
“Thanks to the outstanding investigative work and quick coordination by the Ventura Police Department’s Street Crimes Unit, these defendants were stopped before they could further exploit a vulnerable senior citizen,” Ventura County Dist. Atty. Erik Nasarenko said in a statement on Tuesday.
An after-hours call to attorneys for both Sun and Gu was not returned.
The victim, who requested not to be identified, initially received a text message on March 18 asking him to confirm a $350 Apple Store purchase made with his credit card.
The message also asked the man to speak with a scammer, who falsely told him that his Ventura County Credit Union account was linked to child sexual abuse content based in Canada.
He was then directed to another scammer via a phone call, with this person claiming to be a member of the Ventura County Credit Union Fraud Department.
This conspirator, known in court documents as “Jade,” told the victim to withdraw $25,000 and meet with an undercover Ventura police officer. The funds were to be surrendered as evidence.
The caller even provided a “code phrase” that the victim was supposed to say to the alleged undercover officer at their meeting.
That same day, the victim did as instructed, and delivered $25,000 to one of the scammers, according to court documents.
It wasn’t until the next day that the victim and his spouse began to believe they had been defrauded and reached out to Ventura police.
Detectives from the Street Crimes Unit met with the victim on March 19. They were in the process of interviewing him when Jade reached out to the older man, according to authorities.
This time, Jade requested $50,000, according to authorities.
Ventura police believed Jade and her team were part of a larger international fraud network and coordinated the meet-up.
On March 19, Gu tried to collect $50,000 from the victim, according to authorities. That’s when Ventura police arrested Gu as she tried to run away. Sun, whom officers believe was a lookout, was also arrested.
“The victim’s decision to give us a call and work with our detectives was critical in helping us stop this scam before additional money was lost,” Ventura Police Chief David Dickey said in a statement.
Dickey classified the scam as “highly sophisticated” and targeted at older adults.
“We encourage all community members to have conversations with their loved ones about these tactics and to report suspicious circumstances or activity immediately,” Dickey said.
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