SAN RAMON — A 45-year-old New York resident was arrested on suspicion of coming to the East Bay to pull off a bizarre scam whereby the victim allows the trickster to remove expensive jewelry from their neck.
The man was arrested after allegedly pulling off the scam in San Leandro, where police pulled him over after the victim reported the incident. They also traced him to incidents in San Ramon, and a cohort.
San Ramon police warned of numerous incidents involving the so-called jewelry swap scam, which requires the perpetrators to trick the victims into taking off their jewelry without realizing what’s going on. In what typical incident last Halloween, a man was approached by two scammers who asked him for money.
When he gave them a couple dollars, they chatted more and asked him if he’d be willing to buy one of their necklaces. They even places it around his neck to show him how good he looked in it, but when he declined, they removed his real necklace instead, for a loss of an estimated $4,000, authorities said.
When police raided an Oakland hotel room associated with the suspects, they found 26 pieces of costume jewelry, a dozen pieces of real jewelry, and evidence the scammers were swapping rental cars to avoid detection, authorities said.
Despite the arrest, no charges have been filed yet against either suspect, court records show.
