Javed Ashiq will spend the next 14 years in federal prison for picking up gold bars and cash from an elderly victim on behalf of callers who posed as Federal Trade Commission agents. Judge Dudley H. Bowen sentenced the 52-year-old Decatur, Georgia, man to 168 months, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia announced the sentence on October 7.

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Gold bars handed over “to protect their assets”

Ashiq pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to the Justice Department’s release. In July and August 2024, the co-conspirators led an elderly victim to believe the victim’s identity had been stolen and used for fraudulent purposes. Posing as FTC agents, they convinced the victim to buy cryptocurrency and gold “to protect their assets.”

Ashiq was the courier. He collected the gold bars and cash from the victim and delivered them to the co-conspirators, who are not named in the release. The victim was left with nothing.

The one thing the real FTC does not ask for

The FTC’s own guidance on government impersonators covers this exact script. The agency says it will never tell anyone to “withdraw cash or buy gold and give it to someone,” and that it will never tell a person to move money to “protect it.” Scammers push cryptocurrency, wires and gift cards, the FTC says, because that money is hard to recover.

That leaves a practical question for any household with an older relative: how does a caller who claims to work for a federal agency end up with a particular person’s phone number and a name to ask for? Case files rarely answer it. The Georgia release does not, so the useful work is on the household’s side, in the places where phone numbers and addresses are listed.

Phone numbers and home addresses are the kind of detail that sits on data broker and people-search sites, and Incogni sends removal requests to those brokers for the household and keeps re-sending them. The step is no stand-in for hanging up on an impostor, but it shrinks the pool of listings a caller can draw from.

Prison, supervised release, then deportation

The release does not say how the callers first reached the victim, and it does not put a weight or dollar value on the gold. The restitution figure is the court’s number for what was lost.

U.S. Attorney Margaret E. “Meg” Heap said the case “highlights the ruthless tactics scammers use to exploit senior citizens.” Matthew Ploskunak, a supervisory senior resident agent in the FBI’s Augusta office, called defrauding an elderly victim “of their life savings through deception and impersonation” reprehensible. The FBI, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office and the Sandy Springs Police Department investigated.

Ashiq’s 168 months works out to 14 years, and three years of supervised release follow it. He must pay $886,799.84 in restitution, and he will be processed for deportation once the prison term ends. The release adds that there is no parole in the federal system. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey L. Scanlon prosecuted the case. The release does not say whether any of the callers have been identified, and it names none of them, so the person who stood at the victim’s door is the only defendant it describes.

Reporting a fake FTC call and gathering what investigators ask for

Anyone who has been contacted by someone claiming to be from the FTC can report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and the agency’s government impersonation guide says to hang up, avoid calling back the number the caller gave, and phone the agency on a number already known to be correct. Anyone who handed over personal information is pointed by the FTC to IdentityTheft.gov.

When money or gold has already left the house, the Justice Department release points to two places: the FBI tips site and the department’s elder financial exploitation page. Useful to have on hand are the dates of each call, the phone numbers that appeared, any name or badge number the caller gave, and receipts for every crypto or gold purchase.

Families can also write down one rule ahead of time: no federal agency will ask for gold, and a request to hand cash or metal to a courier is the sign to stop. In the Georgia case, that single request is what turned a phone call into a person standing at the victim’s door.

The phone number a fake agent dials

The fake FTC callers in Georgia needed a victim they could reach and a story that fit, and the prosecutors’ account shows how far one call can go: crypto, gold bars and $886,799.84 in ordered restitution. Incogni asks data brokers and people-search sites to remove personal information, sends the removal requests on a person’s behalf and keeps re-sending them, so fewer broker listings are left to draw from and fewer scam calls, texts and emails can follow.

Have Incogni send the data broker removal requests for you →

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.