It started with a warning on a computer screen. It ended weeks later with a face-to-face meeting on the Upper West Side, and a fortune gone. Now the NYPD is asking the public to help identify the individual it’s looking for.
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On Wednesday, March 26, 2025, a 67-year-old man near West 81st Street and Broadway got what appeared to be a security alert on his computer, according to the police report. The person behind it claimed to work for a security company and told him his financial assets had been compromised.What came next is hard to fathom. The individual convinced the victim to make multiple transactions totaling $9 million and to buy several gold bars, all in the name of keeping his assets secure.
Exactly three weeks after the alert, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, the victim met with an unidentified individual in the same area near West 81st Street and Broadway and handed over the gold bars. That individual then fled on foot “to parts unknown,” the report says. Nobody was hurt.
The NYPD has released media showing the individual it wants to identify in connection with the grand larceny.
Anyone with relevant information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or 1-888-57-PISTA (74782) for Spanish. Tips can also be submitted through Crime Stoppers or on X at @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential.
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