98-year-old woman scammed out of $800K, but no one facing charges

SMITHFIELD, N.C. (WTVD) -- Despite private investigators tracking down the scammers who stole nearly $1 million from a 98-year-old veteran, law enforcement agencies aren't charging the people involved.

ABC11 spoke to the victim's nephew, who requested that we don't use his name or his aunt's name. He told us how it all started back in December of 2023.

"Her computer started making funny sounds and there was a phone number that came up that said, 'You have a virus, please call this.' She called the number," he said. "They were very helpful. She gave them control over her computer so they could fix it. They were very nice."

At that point, the scammers started talking more to the woman, who lives in Virginia. They learned about her background, that she had several advanced degrees like a Ph.D, and had decades of military experience.

"They found out just an amazing amount of information about her that she would not normally share with anybody," her nephew told ABC11. "These folks are really, really good at what they do."

After gaining her trust, they lied to her and told her that they had found child pornography on her computer. They told her that sending them money was the only way to avoid prosecution and that if she sent them the money, they would eventually send it back to her.

They convinced her to take a cab to her bank and take out multiple cashiers checks. In time, the checks totaled more than $800,000. When she ran out of money in her account, they tried to convince her to sell her condo and send them that money too. However, her nephew figured out what was going on before that could happen. Still, she was out an incredible amount of money.

"What is she going to do and how is she going to pay her bills? That's all the money she has," her nephew told ABC11. "These folks have, you know, no resistance or reluctance to take people's last dollar."

Suspects Identified, So Why No Arrests?

He hired private investigator John O'Dea, who owns 303 Alpha Investigations based out of Apex. Working with another PI, retired FBI Special Agent Frank Brostrom, they started to track down the people who took her money. It turns out some of the checks were sent to North Carolina addresses.

"These are often complicated cases, this one isn't complicated," O'Dea told ABC11. "It actually came back to physical addresses and actual people, right? There wasn't a lot of imagination required to solve this case."

The checks were sent to addresses in North Carolina and made out to LLCs based in Smithfield and Selma.

O'Dea and Brostrom explained that these scams often work where an operation based in another country will convince a victim to send checks to an address in the United States. People in the U.S. will deposit the checks into a bank account accessed by the people who are organizing the scam, and the local people who have deposited the checks will receive a commission.

Brostrom said they conducted surveillance at the addresses of the people they believe were part of this scam in Smithfield and Selma. They noticed large-scale home improvements were being made, things such as adding a pool, building new structures, updating current homes with new windows, and pouring a new driveway. Brostrom said he even spoke to a neighbor who said they didn't understand where all this money was coming from to add these updates to their neighbor's home.

In this case, O'Dea and Brostrom spoke with the people they believe are making commission off of the scam, they said the alleged scammers were vague about where the money was coming from and provided conflicting stories about how they were able to afford all the updates.

Despite handing all their evidence over to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, no one is facing charges in this case. Brostrom and O'Dea said some agencies told them they declined to open a case, though one federal agency claimed they are looking into it.

Nearly a year after the crime was first committed, there is nothing to indicate if charges will ever be pressed in this case. Any hope of the victim getting her money back remains extremely slim as well.

"She's been devastated. I think a lot of this has led to her physical decline, the mental stress of all this, and knowing that she was taken advantage of," her nephew said. "They prey on everybody, but it could happen to anybody. You. It could happen to me."

The FBI reports that scammers stole at least $3.4 billion from elderly people in 2023 alone, a 14%increase from the year before.