Dariona Lambert, Wire Fraud, Missouri 2024

ST. LOUIS, MO – A tech support scam targeting elderly victims has been foiled, with five people arrested and accused of stealing at least $8 million.

Dariona Lambert, 22, Zhamoniq Stevens, 23, Chintankumar Parekh, 51, Mehul Darji, 41, and Sital Singh, 42, were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on October 4, 2024.

Lambert, Stevens, and Parekh were originally indicted on that charge in June, while Singh surrendered Monday in Newark, New Jersey. Parekh and Darji were both arrested last week in the Eastern District of Michigan.

The indictment accuses the conspirators of contacting elderly victims via telephone calls and electronic messages, falsely claiming that the victims’ savings and retirement accounts had been compromised. They told their victims to transfer funds to the conspirators to keep their accounts secure.

The scammers would sometimes arrange for the victims to buy gold bars, which would then be picked up by couriers working for the fraudsters. An 82-year-old St. Louis woman was one of the victims, having been told by scammers pretending to be from a computer software support team that her financial accounts had been compromised.

She was told to pay money to prevent her funds from being stolen, and was instructed to open new bank accounts, transfer her money into those accounts, and wire money overseas. The scammers also arranged for her to buy about $250,000 worth of gold bars.

Lambert, Stevens, and Parekh were paid in cash for their roles in the scam, while Parekh, Darji, and Singh travelled to victims’ residences to pick up the gold bars. The scam involved victims in at least ten states.

A motion seeking to have Parekh and Darji held in jail until trial was filed, citing that both are in the United States unlawfully. Parekh overstayed his work visa, while Darji was removed from the country in 2014.

When Parekh was alerted by Lambert that she had been apprehended by the police, he fled Missouri for Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

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