Pair gets 6 years for stealing $203,000 in gold bars from Castle Pines woman

A pair of con artists were sentenced to six years in prison Friday for what prosecutors described as an “elaborate” scheme to trick an elderly Castle Pines woman into buying and handing over about $203,000 worth of gold bars of dollars.

Anil Dhiman, 35, and Punit Punit, 30, both Indian immigrants, were behind the scam in which a caller who identified himself as an “agent” told the woman that her identity had been stolen and that someone was using her financial information to write fraudulent. checks to porn sites, according to a press release of the Prosecutor’s Office of the 18th Judicial District.

Appellant instructed her to open a new bank account, transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars into it, and then use the funds to buy the gold bars from a store in Littleton.

She was then instructed to hand over the precious metals to an “undercover agent” in the parking lot of a Castle Pines business. After doing so, she continued to receive calls and messages instructing her to buy more gold to restore her identity.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office issued a “fraud alert” about the scam in May after being contacted by numerous residents who, like the Castle Pines victim, were told to buy and deliver gold bars to the suspects in a parking lot .