A senior citizen is alleged to have been gulled into buying this bracelet for $20,000, police say. The trinket actually appears to be worth closer to $40.A senior citizen is alleged to have been gulled into buying this bracelet for $20,000, police say. The trinket actually appears to be worth closer to $40. (CBC)

Vancouver police are warning the public about some alleged scammers who duped a 70-year-old Vancouver woman out of $20,000 by talking her into buying a nearly worthless bracelet.

Police say that on the afternoon of June 10, the woman was waiting for a bus near the intersection of Nanaimo and East Hastings Streets when she was approached by a neatly dressed middle-aged woman who struck up a conversation by asking for directions.

Another well-dressed woman arrived and joined the conversation by admiring the bracelet of the second woman. Then another neatly dressed woman arrived wearing the same bracelet, claiming it brought her good luck and health, police said.

The three middle-aged women then convinced the 70-year-old victim that she needed to have one of the bracelets, as well, and they could sell her one for $20,000, police said.

All the women then rode the bus to Vancouver's Chinatown, where the elderly woman withdrew $20,000 cash from her bank safety deposit box, police said.

She then brought the money to the three women waiting at the corner of Gore and East Georgia Streets and handed it over in exchange for a bracelet, police said.

The three suspected scammers then told the woman not to tell her family or the bracelet would lose its healing powers, police said.

The bracelet the elderly woman purchased for $20,000 appears to be a trinket worth only $40, and much of her life savings is now gone, police said.

  • Suspect #1 is described as a 40-year-old Asian woman with a round face and short, dark hair, weighing around 145 pounds and measuring about four feet 10 inches.
  • Suspect #2 is described as a 40-year-old Asian woman with shoulder-length black hair, who is around five-foot-two.
  • Suspect #3 is described as a 50-year-old Asian woman with long, dark hair, measuring around five-foot-four.

Police described all three of the suspected scammers as neatly dressed.