An illegal alien from India faces a pair of 20-year felonies after police recently foiled a plot to bilk an elderly West Michigan woman out of $700,000.
The scam in early May involved participants in India who convinced the woman her Social Security funds were being used for terrorism, and to purchase $700,000 in gold so authorities could track the criminals.
“And somehow he convinced me,” the 79-year-old Ottawa County woman told WOOD. “It’s really kind of devastating to realize how easily I was fooled by these fraudsters.”
The woman, who was not identified, went to Grand Rapids Coins, where owner Ben Soldaat suspected something was off with her request to buy $700,000 in gold coins.
“It just didn’t add up to me and I’ve run into a few [scams] before in the past,” Soldaat told the news site.
“He really pressed me about whether I was sure about this,” the victim said. “I was so convinced that what I was doing was the right thing to do.”
While the woman told Soldaat she was purchasing the gold as an investment for her grandchildren, he noticed she “displayed urgency, confusion” when discussing the transaction.
The woman wired $700,000 to Grand Rapids Coins, and when Soldaat told her it would take three to five days to get the gold to the store, she “seemed antsy and urgent to get the gold,” he told the news site.
“I got the feeling she was really being pushed to come up with a substantial amount of gold fast and not for the reason she initially mentioned,” he said. “Somebody was pushing her in a direction she didn’t want to go.”
The situation convinced Soldaat to contact the Kent County Sheriff’s Office. When a detective visited the woman, she explained the call from the alleged Social Security agent.
“The caller told her funds were being used to support terrorism and instructed her to purchase gold so law enforcement could track the criminals,” according to court records.
An individual who identified himself as Eric called multiple times while detectives were there, and “Eric repeatedly asked whether she was able to go to the gold store,” according to court records cited by WOOD.
That’s when investigators hatched a plan to nab the man sent to collect the coins from a doughnut shop near Grand Rapids Coins that involved fake chocolate coins and an officer dressed up as an old lady.
“The undercover agent dressed up like an older woman, came in and got a package of chocolate gold coins from us to deliver to the courier,” Soldaat said. “I’m glad they did it like that. It was certainly quick thinking on their end.”
Officers arrested Yug Chauhan, 20, who was booked into Kent County Jail on May 2 and remains in custody with an ICE detainer, according to jail records.
Chauhan claimed a person named “Bhawsh” sent him instructions on how to pick up a package from an elderly woman, and the two “solely spoke in Hindu during their calls” on WhatsApp, investigators wrote in court records.
WOW: An alert Michigan coin dealer foiled a $700,000 Social Security scam after fraudsters falsely claimed a 79-year-old widow's life savings were funding terrorism.
Investigators intervened, using a decoy package of chocolate coins to arrest 20-year-old courier Yug B. Chauhan… pic.twitter.com/cYh25wd4cn
— Grand Rapids Businessman (@GR_businessman) June 12, 2026
It was the second such case in recent months, with another involving fraudsters posing as federal agents in an attempt to swindle an elderly Ada Township couple out of $250,000 this month, WOOD reports.
Two suspects arrested in the Ada Township case “admitted to committing similar crimes throughout the Midwest over the past four months,” according to court records.
“It’s a nationwide trend,” Sgt. Scott Dietrich, with the Kent County Sheriff’s Office, told the television station. “A lot of times, these elderly people are convinced the scam is real.”
Chauhan now faces charges of false pretenses of $100,000 or more and using a computer to commit a crime, both 20-year felonies.
He’s one of many illegal immigrants busted for a wide variety of scams in Michigan in recent years.
Illegal immigrant Yasser Pacheco, 44, faces decades in prison after he was allegedly busted by the Kent County Sheriff’s Office following a monthslong investigation into purchases of diesel fuel with stolen financial information.
Court documents allege the scheme involved credit card skimmers used to steal financial information that was later embedded in recycled gift cards that were used to purchase diesel fuel at stations across Michigan.
The scam allegedly involved modified Ford F-250 and Dodge pickups with 150-200 gallon auxiliary tanks Pacheco and others used to fuel up and deliver the diesel to clients at parking lots and truck stops at a steep discount.
Last year, illegal immigrant Victor Julio Tellaria-Sanchez, 36, was charged with multiple felonies after police allege he purchased a car from a woman in Harrison over Facebook Marketplace using 36 fake $100 bills.
In another scam, Yohangel Martin Melo, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was charged in 2024 with two felonies and two misdemeanors for allegedly posing as an Amazon driver to swipe numerous iPhones off porches in metro Detroit.
The financial crimes are in addition to scores of sexual assaults, murders, burglaries, vehicle homicides, and other serious crimes committed by illegal immigrants in Michigan in the last few years.
A “Worst of the Worst” Department of Homeland Security database lists at least 285 illegal immigrants removed from the Great Lakes State with prior convictions for a wide array of heinous crimes.
They include criminals from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Israel, Cuba, Laos, Iraq, Columbia, Canada, Nigeria, China, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Burma, Ukraine, Laos, El Salvador, Sudan, Romania, Peru, Pakistan, Ecuador, Somalia, Vietnam, Jordan, Thailand, Ghana, Poland, Cambodia, Iran, India, Spain, Pakistan, Eritrea, Albania, the Ivory Coast, Dominican Republic of the Congo, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Egypt, Jamaica, Malaysia, and Bhutan.
Prior convictions for the “Worst of the Worst” involve sex assaults, prostituting a minor, cocaine smuggling, DUIs, aggravated assaults, fraud, drug trafficking, hit and runs, lascivious acts with a minor, burglary, sex offenses, immigration fraud, homicide, smuggling aliens, carrying a concealed weapon, identity theft, property damage, resisting police, drug sales, racketeering, domestic violence, negligent manslaughter, flight to avoid prosecution, resisting police, amphetamine sales, cruelty toward a child, drug possession, fondling a child, possession of stolen property, counterfeiting, obstructing justice, trespassing, shoplifting, robbery, failure to register as a sex offender, prostitution, willful homicide, forceable purse snatching, probation violations, weapon trafficking, possession of burglary tools, rape, sodomy, manufacturing methamphetamines, sexual exploitation of a minor, extortion, kidnapping, computer fraud, intimidation, and other offenses.
