2 Plead Guilty To Scamming Elderly Carlsbad Woman Out Of Nearly $1.5M

CARLSBAD, CA — Two men who scammed an elderly Carlsbad woman out of nearly $1.5 million have pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Alexander Charles James, 21, of Los Angeles, and Xilin Sun, 35, of Ontario, admitted they participated in a fraud and money laundering scheme that convinced the victim her bank account information had been compromised and that her money needed to be transferred into gold bars, then handed over to others for safekeeping.

After the woman received a pop-up window on her computer that said she had been hacked, fraudsters posing as government, bank and tech support employees had the woman send $1.335 million in wire transfers to a San Marcos precious metal business, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

She then handed the purchased precious metals, which mostly consisted of gold, to scammers for safekeeping, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The woman had been told the gold bars would be sent to a secure U.S. Treasury locker.

The scammers reached out to her again in February 2024, but the woman contacted the FBI and a sting operation was set up with the victim's help.

The victim gave a package that the scammers believed contained $100,000 in gold to James, who later gave the package to Sun. Sun was arrested and officers found the package of fake gold bars, plus another package containing nearly $12,900 in cash from a different victim, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Sun pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiracy to commit money laundering, while James pleaded guilty on Nov. 25 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Both men are scheduled to be sentenced in February 2026.

Officials urged people to report fraud to any local law enforcement agency or on the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.