FILE - llustration: Fictitious html pages and hacker programs are seen on screens while a man has his hands on the keyboard. (Photo by Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images)
A Chinese national has admitted to participating in a fraud and money-laundering scheme that targeted thousands of elderly people across the United States.
Jiandong Chen, who also went by "Little Tiger," is the second person charged in a five-defendent indictment in which members operated a series of technical support, bank impersonations, government impersonations and refund scams that targeted senior citizens.
How did the scams work?
Dig deeper:
Victims would receive unsolicited phone calls, emails, and pop-up ads that directed the victims to call a phone number. Those phone numbers belonged to scam call centers based in India, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of California.
While the conspirators used multiple methods to scam their victims, the most common one was a refund scam.
Victims were told they were entitled to a small refund, from a retailer for an alleged unauthorized charge, for example.
While pretending to process the refund, the victim would be given more money by "accident" and the conspirator would then instruct the person to send the excess money back through a wire transfer.
The victim would then be instructed to send the money to different locations throughout Southern California, Nevada and beyond.
Scammers even went to victims’ homes to pick up the money in person.
YouTube video exposes ‘Little Tiger’
Chen was caught in one of these fraud schemes during the filming of a YouTube video titled, "Confronting Scammers with Fake Funeral (Epic Reactions)."
Chen admitted to investigators that he used a fake driver’s license and various other forms of fake identification to receive cash from victims.
By the numbers:
Chen defrauded more than $27 million from victims over a two-year period, according to the DOJ.
The victims were in their 70s and 80s.
What's next:
Chen is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on June 26, 2026.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from a news release posted on the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of California website on April 2, 2026. This story was reported from San Jose.