North Andover woman, 26, sent to prison for scamming elderly out of thousands

A North Andover woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges related to her role in perpetrating tech support scams that robbed elderly victims of thousands of dollars, authorities said.

On March 14, police in Allenstown, New Hampshire arrested Rachel Chen, 26, for attempting to take $22,000 in cash from a victim, according to New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella’s office.

Chen and her coconspirators told the victim that he had a “virus on his computer, his financial accounts were compromised, and he needed to turn over the cash to protect it,” prosecutors said.

The victim was on a porn website when a pop-up message appeared prompting him to call Windows security on a provided phone number, according to police documents. A person with a “heavy Indian accent” who went by “David” picked up the phone.

After the victim was told there was “pre approval” for a withdrawal from his bank account, he gave David remote access to his computer to “monitor and prevent future hackers.”

The 60-year-old victim was instructed to withdraw money from his accounts and deposit it into various Bank of America “dummy accounts” to purportedly protect the funds.

Under the guidance of the Allenstown Police Department, the victim arranged a meeting to give a box to the scammers which they believed would contain $22,000, police said. Chen, using the code name “Alice,” then arrived to pick up the money.

Investigators determined that Chen and her coconspirators scammed two additional elderly victims out of a total of $40,000.

Chen pleaded guilty to two class A felony counts of conspiracy to commit theft by deception and one class A felony count of theft by deception, according to officials. On one conspiracy count, Chen was sentenced to 2-6 years in New Hampshire State Prison, and to 7 1/2-15 years for the other. She was sentenced in the Merrimack County Superior Court.

Chen was also ordered to pay $20,000 in remaining restitution, authorities said, after already paying $20,000 prior to sentencing. Chen has also been forbidden from working with “elderly, disabled, or impaired adults, and serving as a fiduciary for any person,” prosecutors said.