MOUNT VERNON — A Knox County woman was spared from a fraud scam that could have cost her $30,000 after an alert family member called law enforcement.
The ensuing investigation resulted in the Knox County Sheriff’s Office returning $82,000 to two victims and one perpetrator serving jail time.
According to Deputy Chief Richard Miller, the elderly woman received a pop-up message on her computer in November 2023.
“The pop-up message was one of those scammers that says that we have detected a virus, please call this number,” Miller said.
When the woman called the number, the people identified themselves and mentioned an association with federal authorities.
“In order for her to not be in any trouble, she needed to go to the bank and withdraw $30,000 cash. And she did,” Miller said.
“As a normal human, if I went to the bank and said, hey, I need $30,000, I would hope there would be a check and balance that somebody would say something.”
Lt. James Ferenbaugh led the investigation. A detective sergeant at the time, he said the scammers kept the woman on the phone while she went to two banks.
“That’s pretty common,” he said. “They want to keep them on the phone to keep them from telling a family member.”
According to Ferenbaugh, the scammer instructed the woman to put the money in a shoebox. Someone from the FBI would pick up the package.
Fortunately, a family member intervened when they noticed the woman had a box of U.S. currency. Realizing that something was not legitimate, they put the brakes on and called the sheriff’s office.
“We got involved before the drop. Our major crimes detectives set up a stakeout, surveillance. A very successful surveillance,” Miller said.
A successful surveillance op
Ferenbaugh waited inside the country home for the scammer to arrive. Another detective was in an unmarked car inside a garage.
“They see a car arrive a short distance away, someone get out, walk up to the house, and make contact like she was told on the phone. And, of course, we intervene,” Miller said.
Detectives recovered financial documents, nearly $87,000 in U.S. currency, and a money counter. They also recovered personal identification documents, money bands, and U.S. Postal Service shipping labels and boxes.
On Dec. 4, 2023, a Knox County Grand Jury indicted Jingchen Li, Liu Huan, and Zhuxian Min for attempted grand theft, a fifth-degree felony.
Miller said detectives’ supplementary reports showed the trio would scam money from victims and package and ship it to recipients in various locations to make it hard to trace.
The postal service and Homeland Security became involved in the investigation.
“They were able to make a link analysis, which then drove us back to our victim from Hilliard and our victim from Iowa,” Miller said. “Our local victim recovered her money that day; it never left the property.”
Miller said the result was a “good-news” story.
“We didn’t have one of our citizens victimized. We were able to intervene in time to bring that to a successful conclusion so that she didn’t lose part or all of her life savings,” Miller said.
“At the same time, they were able to investigate it such that we’re able to recover or identify other previous victims of the same or very similar scam and get their money returned to them.”
An unexpected Christmas present
After the court adjudicated the case, detectives determined that $82,000 went to two victims from Hilliard and Mediopolis, Iowa.
“We were not able to verify the portion that [the scammer] claimed was her personal money. Not being able to say it did not belong to her, we had to give it back to her. She walked away with it,” Miller said.
“It was minuscule compared to this, but she did walk away with some funds because we couldn’t prove otherwise, and it was in her personal possession.”
In December 2025, the KCSO returned the $82,000 to the two victims.
“I think we sent checks out right before Christmas,” Miller said.
The chief deputy said it took so long to return the money to the victims because the scam involved victims throughout the country.
It took time to get law enforcement partners on board, vet the information, and put it into a timeline so that investigators had a close-to-factual basis for what occurred.
The legal process ended in September 2024 when Liu Huan pleaded guilty to attempted grand theft. Huan was sentenced to 60 days in the Knox County Jail with credit for seven days served.
Charges against Jingchen Li and Zhuxian Min were dismissed in June 2024.
Court documents state an Odessa, Texas, address for Huan.
Li and Min’s addresses are listed as Middleton, Wisconsin. Both were listed as foreign nationals on the indictment in lieu of Social Security numbers.
“You can’t do anything with the evidence until it comes to a conclusion. So once all that gets concluded, now we can take a look at what we discovered and get that back to the proper people,” Miller said.
‘A great feeling’
Miller said the investigation rested with the sheriff’s office because it began with a local citizen, and the victims were arrested within its jurisdiction.
“When we sit in front of so many victims who have been stripped of their money, when something like this happens, it just makes you happy,” Sheriff Daniel Weckesser said.
“It’s a great feeling that some of them are getting caught.”