Getty Images **In the past 2 1/2 years the FBI has documented at least 1,737 instances nationwide of a courier being used to pick up bulk cash or gold bars, with losses of approximately $186 million.**

By QUINTON SMITH/Lincoln Chronicle

It was the second visit by an elderly woman to his Lincoln City coin and gold shop that got Jeff Spielman suspicious.

In August, the 81-year-old woman had placed an order for $285,000 in gold coins, saying her bank accounts had been compromised and her accountant recommended she buy gold to put in a special account for safekeeping.

In mid-September she was back at J.S. Coin Shop with three $95,000 checks and another order for $278,000 in gold coins. This time she told Spielman it was under the instructions of the FBI, who wanted her to meet up with an agent in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen in Toledo.

“I know the FBI doesn’t do that,” Spielman told the Lincoln Chronicle on Thursday before appearing before a grand jury in Newport. “And they certainly don’t do that in a parking lot.”

Spielman convinced the woman to call the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office to report the likely scam. Detectives investigated with the FBI and on Sept. 24 set up an elaborate sting to arrest a California man who had flown in to serve as a courier for the scammers.

Tejveer Kumar of San Bernadino, Calif. is being held in the Lincoln County jail on $500,000 bail on three charges – criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated theft, racketeering and attempted aggravated theft.

According to a three-page probable cause affidavit filed in Lincoln County circuit court, Kumar is believed to have been the courier working with one or two other men who had already conned the elderly victim out of the first $285,000. Those men, believed to have been nearby during the Sept. 24 sting, are not in custody.

The gold scams are a growing and apparently successful ruse, according to the FBI. Between January 2023 and May 2025, the FBI said it documented at least 1,737 instances nationwide of a courier being used to pick up bulk cash or gold bars, with losses of approximately $186 million.

“This is a fraud that is well known to law enforcement which has been occurring and evolving in the United States,” sheriff’s Detective Anthony Bettencourt said in his affidavit.

Started in July

In his affidavit, Bettencourt said the scam started in July when the woman got a phone call from a man identifying himself as an FBI agent, that her bank accounts had been compromised, that they were investigating, but asking her to set up an investment account at Charles Schwab, which they had control of.

The scammer then told the woman to open three separate checking accounts at different banks, put $95,000 into each and then go to the coin shop to purchase the gold. On Sept. 6, she delivered $285,000 worth of coins to a courier waiting in the parking lot of the Toledo Dairy Queen.

Bettencourt said the fraudulent agent remained in contact with the woman and on Sept. 17 gave her instructions to buy $278,000 in gold coins. That’s when she went back to J.S. Coins and Spielman, recognizing the possible scam, urged her to call the sheriff’s office.

Bettencourt said the sheriff’s office worked with the FBI to set up the sting and mentioned the FBI referenced “another elderly lady attempting to deliver $800,000 to the suspects in Eugene” on Sept. 23.

The sting at the Dairy Queen took place Sept. 24. Bettencourt said the fake FBI agent was on the phone with the victim for six hours “stringing her along.” The affidavit said Kumar had flown in from California, took an Uber ride from Portland International Airport, parked across from the restaurant and then went inside.

There were plainclothed officers inside the restaurant and observed Kumar “to be nervous and purchase some food,” Bettencourt wrote.

“He then went and sat but did not eat but watched everyone and all the vehicles come and go and was on his phone constantly,” the detective said. “The behavior he displayed was typical of counter surveillance which we see in other illicit meetups in an attempt to see who is around and who might be watching …”

Bettencourt said investigators sent a decoy instead of the victim into the parking lot, as requested by the courier. The probable cause affidavit said it was clear that there was a third “as yet unidentified suspect at the location” who was relaying information to the courier.

At that point the courier became wary and asked the Uber driver to pick him up and head back to Portland. Authorities quickly stopped the Uber driver’s car and arrested Kumar.

Bettencourt said the Uber driver was fully cooperative. The driver said he had picked Kumar up at the airport and asked to drive to Toledo where the rider said he was meeting his brother. Kumar said he would not need a ride back to Portland, the driver said.

But Bettencourt said in the affidavit that Kumar “requested the Uber hang out for a few minutes when he was summoned to come get him.”

Kumar’s first court appearance is scheduled Oct. 13.

Neither the FBI nor the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests by the Chronicle for other details about the case or for gold scam warnings to the public.

But Spielman, who originally asked the woman to call authorities, said the victim “is a strong woman.”

“She went over and above to stop this,” he said. “These guys are very persistent and prey on elderly, single women.”