Kris Owen, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran, had planned to spend his golden years in Indiana with his wife, Karen. They wanted to spend more time with his son and travel the world together.

But she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic hit soon after.

“All of our plans for travel and everything kind of went out the window,” Owen told ABC News.

Two years later, Owen’s wife passed away.

“Probably one of the reasons I was so susceptible to what happened to me,” Owen said.

Owen received a pop-up message on his computer in 2023 saying that his personal information was compromised — and was told to call a phone number.

When he did, an individual posing as a federal agent said they would safeguard his money and instructed him to convert some of his savings into gold bars, Owen told ABC News. After weeks of communications and after receiving what he thought was a letter from the FBI, Owen purchased $80,000 worth of gold bars.

“They told me to wrap it in a box … with Christmas wrap paper,” Owen said.

He then took his gold to a grocery store parking lot near his house, he said, expecting to hand it over to a federal agent so the gold could be kept in a secure location. A car soon pulled up next to Owen and he placed the gold in the back seat before the driver took off.

He never saw the money again.

Owen soon realized that he was the victim of a scam — and he is far from alone.

As the value of gold surges, grifters have turned their sights to securing more of the precious metal in a growing scheme that defrauded Americans of some $126 million in 2024, according to the FBI.

“Gold Grifters,” a new investigation by ABC News in collaboration with ABC stations WABC-TV and WLS-TV, found victims of the gold bar courier scam throughout the country.

As victims continue to stumble upon the ruse and lose anywhere from thousands to millions of dollars each, the scheme has seemingly stunned authorities.

“I have never seen a scam to this magnitude, as intricate and as detailed as this, that can target so many individuals across the entire United States,” Sean Petty, a detective for the Montgomery County Police Department who has investigated multiple gold bar scam cases in Maryland, told ABC News.

Watch “Gold Grifters,” an ABC News investigation, on “ABC News Live Prime” at 7 p.m. ET on Feb. 25, 2025.

A golden time for gold

The scam involving gold bars comes as the value of the precious metal is worth more now than ever. People are stockpiling gold in record numbers, with business continuing to boom at gold stores across the country, according to the store owners.

“Everybody’s buying gold as a safe haven,” said Tony Jordan, the owner of Midwest Jewelry and Bullion in Indianapolis. “It’s a hot commodity right now for sure.”

But as the price of gold surges, scammers have taken notice.

“Everybody knows gold is worth something,” said Chris Delzotto, section chief of the Financial Crimes unit for the FBI.

Catching a courier

Soon after Owen handed over some of his life savings, scammers posing as federal agents contacted him again to request more money.

“They came back and started again,” Owen said, explaining that they’d said, “‘Now, we need to put the rest of the money away in our secure vault with your other money.'”

Owen, who was already suspicious, contacted law enforcement.

“So then we set up the sting operation,” Owen said.

The FBI and a local Indiana police department had Owen go undercover to try to catch an individual who was supposed to receive $50,000 from him. Owen, wearing a wire, met with the individual at a parking lot and placed a box with fake cash in the individual’s back seat.

“And I said, ‘You’re my agent.’ And he said, ‘Yes,'” Owen told ABC News. “This time he spoke. And then he drove off just like before.”

Law enforcement followed the individual, who they later identified as Abdul Mohammed, and took him in for questioning. He was charged by federal prosecutors with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of wire fraud.

Mohammed, who later fled the country, was a courier — an individual recruited to pick up gold bars or cash from victims, according to law enforcement officials.

The FBI says some couriers play a larger role in the criminal scheme, while others claim they were simply hired to pick up and drop off packages. Across the country, law enforcement officials and prosecutors are targeting couriers to try to put a stop to the criminal operation.

An alleged courier speaks out

In an exclusive phone interview, ABC News spoke to a suspected courier from jail as he faces charges in two states for his alleged involvement in gold bar schemes.

Yash Shah, 27, who was originally charged with multiple felonies in 2023 related to the scam, claims he does not know where the gold is going. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years probation, but he was arrested again last November for his alleged involvement in a Maryland case. He is currently being held without bond in a New York detention facility.

“I’m not a criminal or anything like that,” Shah told ABC News. “I’m just a normal person. They [were] just saying … if you wanna make a little more money, you have to go pick up the package, and you have to just drop it over there. That’s it.”

Shah claims he was hired by someone from India and was paid between $800 and $4,000 to pick up packages, some which contained gold bars. His attorney, Nicholas Ramcharitar, said Shah took between five and 10 trips traveling all over the Northeast as a courier.

“I want to be clear, Yash’s culpability is definitely there,” Ramcharitar told ABC News. “He understands what he did.”

Shah said he feels guilty for playing a role in the scam and wants to help law enforcement find the “masterminds.”

“There are going to be many layers because they are operating from India,” Shah said.

Delzotto told ABC News the FBI is investigating call centers in India that are linked to the scam.

“These tech support pop-ups that initiate the whole scam emanate from a call center in India,” Delzotto said. “So we have a lot of focus on India with [a lot of] these illegitimate call centers.”

An urgent warning

In the United States, as couriers are facing prison sentences, law enforcement officials are traveling to senior communities to raise awareness about the scam.

“One of the main things anybody who’s [in] law enforcement can do against any scams, particularly those that target our seniors, is to advise … and educate … about what those scams are,” said John McCarthy, the state’s attorney for Montgomery County, Maryland.

Delzotto told ABC News that because scams are getting more sophisticated, people should be cautious with messages they receive on their computer.

“Never click on sites that you’re not familiar with,” Delzotto said. “We use the phrase ‘take a beat’ here. Step back. Consult with a trusted family member or friend. See if it makes sense before you engage.”

WLS-TV’s Jason Knowles and WABC-TV’s David Paredes contributed to this report.