A New York man has been arrested in connection with the scam of an elderly North Reading resident.

Xuejian Wu, 30, was arrested after allegedly stealing thousands of dollars from an elderly resident.

According to North Reading police, officers were contacted this week by an elderly town resident who believed they were being scammed by people on the Internet.

Investigators determined that a sophisticated online fraudster illegally obtained remote access to the resident’s computer and was able to successfully use a series of threats and intimidation to steal more than $10,000 from the victim through digital Bitcoin transactions .

After being alerted to this theft, North Reading Police discovered that the scammer was attempting to steal additional money from the victim, this time telling the victim that federal agents would be coming to their home to collect the rest of their money .

On Thursday, November 14, North Reading police arrested Wu when he arrived at the victim’s residence and identified himself as a federal agent attempting to receive money from the victim.

Wu is charged with a number of theft charges.

“Such arrests are not common in law enforcement. These scammers are experts at targeting our senior citizen population and using threats and intimidation through technology to victimize them and often prevent them from notifying the police in time to take action. In this case, we were able to successfully reverse a scammer who chose to target residents and resulted in the successful arrest of Wu,” said Chief Zimmerman.

Wu was arraigned Friday in Woburn District Court.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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