A text message about an unauthorized online purchase started the Reno case in which Anil Kumar was sentenced on October 7, 2026, to 45 years in prison, with parole eligibility after 18, KRNV News 4 reported. Prosecutors had asked for 60.
According to the report, a jury had convicted Kumar of exploiting an elderly person and of attempting to obtain money under false pretenses from an older person. The victim opened the link in the text and shared her phone number. Callers posing as law enforcement then told her she was under investigation.
She handed cash and gold to couriers on three occasions and lost more than $500,000. Kumar and a co-defendant, Amit Bhanwala-Singh, were each ordered to pay about $485,000 in restitution. The Washoe County District Attorney's Office handled the case, and the arrests came in May 2025.
Two details in the report are worth separating from the sentence itself. The first contact was a text with a link, which means the victim had started acting on a stranger's instructions before any call.
And the loss was not one payment. Three pickups is three separate occasions on which someone who knew her, or who thought to ask, could have noticed that cash and gold were leaving the house.
The report does not say how the victim was chosen, where the pickups took place, or whether a bank or a dealer was involved in the gold purchase, and none of that is assumed here. It is a sentencing summary from local television, and Larigent has not matched it to a court record.
For the people who investigate these cases, a sentence of this length settles the question of consequence for the collection role. It leaves open the question of how many handoffs happen before anyone is looking, and that is the question a bank teller, a dealer or a family member is placed to answer.
If this is your family
Agree with your parent that a text about a purchase, an account or a package is never answered by tapping the link or calling the number in the message. They look the company up themselves, or they ask you first. And if anyone arrives to collect cash or gold, the answer is no, whatever the caller says.
Sources
KRNV News 4 Reno, "Fraud ring defendant sentenced to 45 years in Reno elder scam case," October 7, 2026: https://mynews4.com/news/local/fraud-ring-defendant-sentenced-to-45-years-in-reno-elder-scam-case