PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A second person has been arrested in a phantom hacker scam that targeted a 78-year-old woman in Phoenix.
Last month, the FBI arrested a suspected scammer at Sky Harbor Airport who was trying to board a flight home to Florida. Now, the FBI says his wife was in on the fraud.
According to court documents, Gary and Jennifer Christopher were involved in a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gold from a 78-year-old woman, known as J.H.
J.H. was the victim of a complex phantom hacker scam. She was convinced that she was the victim of identity theft connected to an ongoing federal investigation into child sexual abuse material. She believed the government was going to help her protect her money while the investigation unfolded.
In reality, she wired $24,000 to scammers, then handed over another $390,000 worth of gold to a courier. She grew suspicious after a request for another $600,000 worth of gold and reported it to the FBI. Agents were waiting at her home waiting for the third transaction.
“We’ve had some good success stopping the courier at the time of pickup before they’re able to victimize another person,” said Troy Cofer, FBI supervisory special agent in Phoenix.
Cofer was not able to speak directly to the case involving J.H., but he said phantom hacker scams are intricate and costly, and they happen more than people may realize.
“You may get a passcode to try to legitimize it, and then a person that you don’t know is coming to your home to pick up tens, hundreds, if not millions of dollars from these individuals who feel like they’re cooperating or working with the government,” Cofer said.
The alleged courier who showed up at J.H.’s house is Gary Christopher. According to the FBI, he left his job in order to travel the country retrieving and transporting criminal proceeds.
Investigators say his wife Jennifer helped her husband by communicating instructions from the handler and making travel arrangements. According to the indictment, there were numerous phone calls and messages with co-conspirators, and the FBI says Jennifer sent her husband a video that appeared to demonstrate how to package and ship gold.
When reached by phone last month, Jennifer denied her involvement.
“I’m not involved. I cook. That’s what I do. I’m behind on my credit cards. I’m not involved with nothing” she told On Your Side. “[Gary] told me that somebody had reached out to him, and that’s all he told me.”
After Jennifer was charged with money laundering, her bond was set at $300,000.
“We look at cases more on an enterprise basis, the courier is that first step and then we work to get information from them to try and build out the case to get the network as a whole. We know we’re not going to stop just by one courier,” Cofer said.
To avoid similar phantom hacker scams, the FBI says you should never click on pop-ups or links on any of your devices from unexpected senders. Don’t call phone numbers provided in an unexpected text, email or pop-up, and don’t download software onto your device at the request of someone you don’t know.
It’s also important to remember the government will never ask you to send money via wire transfer, cryptocurrency or gold.
Gary Christopher’s trial date is set for Sept. 1. Attorneys for the Christophers did not respond to On Your Side’s requests for interviews.
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