Man Charged With Scamming Elderly North Reading Resident: Police

NORTH READING, MA — A New York man is facing allegations that he scammed an elderly North Reading resident out of thousands of dollars, according to police.

An elderly resident contacted police this week who believed they were being scammed by people on the internet.

Investigators found that "a sophisticated online scammer" had gained remote access to the resident's computer and through "a series of threats and intimidation to steal more than $10,000 from the victim through digital Bitcoin transactions."

Police discovered that the scammer was attempting to steal additional money from the victim, telling the victim that federal agents would be coming to their home address to collect the remainder of their money.

Police arrested Xuejian Wu, 30, of New York, on Thursday. He was charged with larceny over $1,200 by false pretenses, conspiracy to commit larceny by false pretenses, attempt to commit a crime (larceny by false pretenses), attempt to commit a crime (larceny from a person), and attempt to commit a crime (larceny from a person over 60 years old).

He was scheduled to be arraigned in Woburn District Court on Friday.

“Arrests such as this are not common in law enforcement," Chief Mark Zimmerman said in a statement. "These scammers are experts in targeting our senior citizen population and using threats and intimidation through technology to victimize them, and often keep them from notifying the police in time to act. In this case we were able to successfully turn the tables on a scammer who chose to target our residents..."