The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office arrested two Massachusetts men on Wednesday after they allegedly scammed a Rangeley Plantation woman out of $40,000 using PayPal.
On Tuesday, the alleged victim reported that she had been scammed out of thousands of dollars, prompting an investigation by Detective David Davol.
Davol determined that the alleged scammers, Dev Patel, 19, of Westford, Mass., and Love Patel, 24, of Mansfield, Mass., had arrived at the victim’s home, reportedly impersonating Department of Justice officials and demanding money as part of an investigation.
Davol also learned that the alleged scammers were planning to return to the victim’s house the next day and demand an additional $32,000.
When the Patels arrived at the victim’s house, deputies were waiting there and arrested the two men.
The alleged scammers were transported to jail and face charges of Class C theft by deception.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department has informed the appropriate federal authorities, and the investigation continues, though they did not specify which federal agencies would be involved.
The department did not provide any information on the immigration status of the alleged scammers, though the incident bears some striking similarities to a scamming scheme busted last week.
That incident involved the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department arresting an illegal immigrant from Massachusetts for allegedly driving to Maine in a rental car and deceiving an elderly Hermon woman in person, claiming her bank account had been compromised and demanding escalating sums of money.
The Penobscot Sheriff’s Department noted that the incident was peculiar because it involved in-person contact between the victim and the alleged perpetrator, something extremely uncommon for scams of this sort, but also present in the Patels’ case, pointing to a new, aggressive tactic scammers are using on Maine residents.
Desperate people do desperate things I guess.
i wanna see what clothes they wore playing federal investigator! not to read a book by its cover but they dont look to be the brains of any operation…..
Their last name is Patel .
They wanted to be paid in Cash .
Oh jeepers ….watch the democrats word games begin ,
Indian? really. The south americans are going to be pissed.
Thank you all: Janet, Angus, Sue, Shellie. Jaraad, for not standing up to Joe Biden and his democratic party.PS the other Democrat leaders like Plassie, Shumer, and Augusta. May you all riot in Hell!
They are not Massachusetts men, they are likely illegals who came from Canada. Lots of South Asians are committing all sorts of fraud in Canada like massive amount of car thefts and shipping them overseas.
Those guys are lucky it was an old lady. I would have run them through a wood chipper.
Brown folks – gotta love ’em!
More MUD PEOPLE committing crimes !