2 plead guilty to scamming Carlsbad resident out of almost $1.5M

Two men who took part in scamming an elderly Carlsbad woman out of nearly $1.5 million have pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Prosecutors say scammers convinced the victim her bank account information had been compromised and that her money needed to be transferred into gold bars, then handed over to others for apparent safekeeping.

After the woman received a pop-up on her computer that stated she'd been hacked, fraudsters posing as government, bank, and tech support employees had the woman send $1.335 million in wire transfers to a San Marcos precious metal business, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

She then handed the purchased precious metals, which mostly consisted of gold, to scammers for supposed safekeeping, according to prosecutors, who said the woman had been told the