On May 9, 2025, the Norwood Police Department in Massachusetts arrested 37-year-old Chinese-born Brooklyn resident Yat Ching Chau for serving as a money mule for a refund scam, where:
- The victim, in this case a 37-year-old resident, received a fraudulent cold call from a scammer posing as an employee of a technology firm to falsely claim their bank accounts were compromised.
- In order to resolve the fake issue, the victim was asked to withdraw $30,000 from their bank account and try to deposit it into a Bitcoin ATM.
- If they are unsuccessful, the scammers will arrange for a courier/money mule to pick up the funds and hand it off directly to the scammers.
Chau is currently being held on a $50,000 bail on charges of:
- Possession of a Class E. Substance (narcotics, 2ct)
- Attempted larceny over $1,200 by false pretense and the conspiracy to commit.
This also wasn’t Chau’s first run-in with the law, as he was arrested alongside Linshan Chen for swapping Apple airpods out of their packaging for a counterfeit product and returning the product for cash.