Video: Undercover Detective Thwarts $700K Gold Coin Scam Using...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A dramatic confrontation unfolded as deputies from the Kent County Sheriff’s Office intercepted a suspected scam courier in a high-stakes operation. The individual was accused of attempting to abscond with approximately $700,000 in gold coins from a widow residing in West Michigan.

The unfolding drama was set into motion on May 1 when a vigilant coin store owner grew suspicious of a transaction. A 79-year-old woman from Ottawa County had entered his shop with the intention of purchasing a substantial amount of gold coins. Sensing something amiss, the store owner took action.

The sheriff’s office released footage on Wednesday capturing the undercover operation. In the video, a detective, disguised as the elderly victim, is seen meeting the suspect in a strip mall parking lot near Rockford. The detective feigned a phone conversation with another supposed scammer, who was, in reality, her fellow officer.

“Are you the agent?” she queried, setting the trap in motion.

“Yeah,” he replied.

Wearing a white winter hat and sunglasses and sitting in a car with a brown cardboard box in her lap, the detective asked for a “code.” The suspect recited a series of letters and numbers.

“Do I give him the box, then?” the detective asked her partner. “Is that the code, or do I hang on to the box?”

The suspect looked on, casually sipping from a can.

She got out of the car and told the suspect, “I’m supposed to give you this, I think.”

“It’s all in there, sir,” she said.

“Do you want me to give him the box or do you want me to hold on?” she asked the person on the phone. “What would you like me to do? OK, Eric.”

She dropped the phone and the box and grabbed the suspect’s arms, pulling them behind his back as several more deputies pulled up in unmarked cruisers.

“Give me your other hand,” she ordered the suspect, spinning him around and pushing him against her unmarked car.

The suspect gave up immediately:

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said.

The box the undercover detective had been prepared to hand him was filled not with real gold, but with foil-wrapped chocolate coins.

More video shows the suspect, identified as 20-year-old Yug Chauhan, putting his head down on the table in an interrogation room at the sheriff’s office. He was charged with two 20-year felonies.

A May 2, 2026, booking photo of Yug Chauhan from the Kent County Correctional Facility.

Court records show Chauhan was told by someone called “Bhawsh” to go from Illinois to West Michigan, hire an Uber driver to take him to a meeting spot and pick up the gold from the victim.

She had gotten a call from a scammer based in India, authorities say, who called himself “Eric” and claimed to work for Social Security. He told her that her Social Security number was being used to promote terrorism, drug activity and money laundering. He tricked her into thinking the solution was to buy $700,000 in gold coins and send it on.

When she went to Grand Rapids Coins on 10 Mile Road in Algoma Township, owner Ben Soldaat started noticing red flags.

“It just didn’t add up to me and I’ve run into a few (scams) before in the past,” he previously told Target 8.

“I got the feeling she was really being pushed to come up with a substantial amount of gold fast, and not for the reason that she initially mentioned,” he said. “Somebody was pushing her in a direction she didn’t want to go.”

He called the sheriff’s office and investigators set up the sting.

Once in custody, Chauhan said he never met the man orchestrating the scam, court records show. He said they communicated primarily through WhatsApp.

The case was among two similar gold scams targeting the elderly foiled in Kent County in recent months. In the other, two people were arrested after trying to make off with $250,000 in gold, court records show.

“It’s a nationwide trend,” Kent County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Scott Dietrich said of the scams. “It is going to take family members and businesses to step in early and protect those vulnerable adults from losing all their money.”

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Video: Undercover Detective Thwarts $700K Gold Coin Scam Using Decoy Chocolate Coins

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