A New Jersey man is facing at least one year in prison after pleading guilty to stealing nearly $600,000 in gold and over $90,000 in cash from a Pennsylvania victim, according to the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office. Hirtik Hemchand Khatri, 26, pleaded guilty to several charges includi ng theft by extortion, theft by unlawful taking and other related offenses back on Nov. 20, 2025, officials said. An investigation into Khatri started after a 74-year-old person called the Whitehall Township Police Department to report that he had been the victim of a ongoing scam. The victim told police that he got an email that alerted him to a fraudulent charge on his PayPal account. He was ultimately told that he was responsible for the charge and would need to repay the company, police had explained. The scammer told him that he could go to a local gas station and use a Bitcoin kiosk to pay back PayPal for the charge. According to the victim, he then got several calls with each one claiming that an error had occurred so he had to repay to fix it with cryptocurrency, gold or cash. The victim had told police that he was warned that if he didn’t make the payments that he would be arrested and taken to jail. Police say this fear is what led him to continue paying the fraudster – Khatri. Investigators were able to use license plate readers to identify the car that Khatri had been using when he picked up the payments from the victim. Then, the victim was able to pick out Khatri from a photo lineup. Officials said that the victim took money out of his retirement savings to buy more than 200 gold bars that were worth almost $600,000 to give to Khatri. The victim also gave him $91,000 in cash. Khatri was sentenced on Jan. 16 to serve 12 months minus one day and up to 36 months in state prison as well as two years of probation. If you live in Lehigh County and believe you are a victim of a scam, you can call the Elder Abuse Task Force at 610-782-3700. ...read more read less