The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office arrested two Massachusetts men on Wednesday after they allegedly scammed a Rangeley Plantation woman out of $40,000 using PayPal.
On Tuesday, the alleged victim reported that she had been scammed out of thousands of dollars, prompting an investigation by Detective David Davol.
Davol determined that the alleged scammers, Dev Patel, 19, of Westford, Mass., and Love Patel, 24, of Mansfield, Mass., had arrived at the victim’s home, reportedly impersonating Department of Justice officials and demanding money as part of an investigation.
Davol also learned that the alleged scammers were planning to return to the victim’s house the next day and demand an additional $32,000.
When the Patels arrived at the victim’s house, deputies were waiting there and arrested the two men.
The alleged scammers were transported to jail and face charges of Class C theft by deception.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department has informed the appropriate federal authorities, and the investigation continues, though they did not specify which federal agencies would be involved.
The department did not provide any information on the immigration status of the alleged scammers, though the incident bears some striking similarities to a scamming scheme busted last week.
That incident involved the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department arresting an illegal immigrant from Massachusetts for allegedly driving to Maine in a rental car and deceiving an elderly Hermon woman in person, claiming her bank account had been compromised and demanding escalating sums of money.
The Penobscot Sheriff’s Department noted that the incident was peculiar because it involved in-person contact between the victim and the alleged perpetrator, something extremely uncommon for scams of this sort, but also present in the Patels’ case, pointing to a new, aggressive tactic scammers are using on Maine residents.
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