Canton police take down foreign national suspected of scamming elderly woman

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Canton Police body cameras were rolling as a fraud suspect sought to scam an 84-year-old woman of $25,000 on December 17. That was after he and another man allegedly conned her out of another $40,000 just days before.

Needless to say, the plot did not go as planned.

“It’s sad. You’ve got an elderly person who worked really hard their whole lives. To have their earnings taken from them is really terrible,” said Erin Downs.

Downs and Laura Hahn are the victim’s daughters. They monitor her accounts and were stunned to find three large withdrawals for a total of $65,000 in December.

“We contacted our mom and questioned why that had happened, and she told us we knew that wasn’t right. We contacted the local police department,” Downs said.

Investigators say a scammer cold-called the woman, pretending to be a senior fraud officer at her bank.

“They’re very convincing,” said Captain Joseph Bialy of the Canton Police Department. “They convinced the victim that there was an error in her account, and because of that error, she owed them money.”

That second suspect, who has not yet been caught, told the woman his assistant would collect the money from her home.

Li Biao, a Chinese national who police say is in the country illegally, was that bag man. He collected $40,000 from the woman on two separate occasions.

Canton Police entered the picture after the suspected scammers set up a third pickup for another $25,000. Officers waited at the woman’s home on the day of the exchange. When Biao arrived and got the money in hand, they sprang into action.

“It was nice to see a collaborative effort from the police department resulting in positive outcomes placing somebody in custody, especially with the circumstances surrounding this incident where an elderly victim was taken advantage of for quite a bit a sum of money,” said Captain Bialy. “So, for the Canton Police Department to get her back some of that money or at least stop the loss of money was very satisfying for us.”

Biao is facing a pair of felony charges for fraud and obstructing police. Downs and Hahn are hoping no one else experiences what their mother did.