LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — A New York man accused of stealing more than half a million dollars in gold bars from an Ephrata woman by posing as a federal agent has waived his preliminary hearing, allowing the case to move forward to county court.
Zhong Ren, 44, of Brooklyn, is charged with theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, conspiracy, and impersonating a public servant in connection with the April 18 scheme that resulted in the theft of $555,892 worth of gold bars from a home on Linda Terrace.
According to investigators, Ren and unidentified co-conspirators convinced the victim that she was the target of a foreign hacking operation and needed to liquidate her assets into gold for safekeeping in a supposed Federal Reserve vault in Philadelphia. Ren was later identified as the person who came to the victim’s home and collected the gold.
Ren was arrested in June by Maryland State Police after he was linked to a similar scheme in Buckingham Township, Pa. At the time of his arrest, police found a gold bar hidden in his sock and additional gold items in his vehicle. Cellphone data also placed him at the Ephrata residence for about 30 minutes on the day of the theft.
Authorities believe Ren may be connected to a larger international fraud network involved in similar scams.
He remains held in Lancaster County Prison in lieu of $550,000 bail.