Gold Dealers Charged in $185 Million Scheme to Con the Elderly

Two Los Angeles-based dealers have been charged with swindling senior citizens on precious-metals purchases in the run-up to this year’s record high in gold prices.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and 30 state regulators charged Metals.com, Barrick Capital Inc. and its principals, Lucas Asher and Simon Batashvili, “with executing an ongoing nationwide fraud that solicited and received more than $185 million in investor funds to purchase fraudulently overpriced gold and silver bullion,” according to a statement Friday.

The complaint alleges that since at least Sept. 1, 2017 the defendants fraudulently solicited and received customer funds -- including more than $140 ...