A YouTube channel that helped Miller County investigators run an undercover elder-fraud sting in Texarkana this fall has released its video of the operation, showing officers taking a man to the pavement in a Jefferson Avenue parking lot moments after he accepted a package he had been told held $35,000 in cash.
Trilogy Media posted the 57-minute video Saturday under the title “Scammer fights police during arrest.” The man arrested in it, Lin Chenghao, 45, is charged in Miller County Circuit Court with theft of property over $25,000 and unauthorized use of another person’s property to facilitate a crime, both Class B felonies, according to court records. His case, 46CR-26-540, is set for a jury trial Jan. 25. He remains in the Miller County jail on a $200,000 bond.
Lin was one of two men arrested during the weeklong operation in late September, which TXKtoday reported on Oct. 6. The video is the first public look at how the arrest happened and at what Lin told investigators afterward.
The sting
In the video, Trilogy Media co-host Ashton Bingham plays an elderly man named Frank. A caller claiming to be a federal official tells him money laundering allegations have been made under his name and that a “federal custodian” will collect his cash for safekeeping. Bingham tells him he withdrew $35,000.
The caller directs “Frank” to the Family Dollar on Jefferson Avenue and tells him to hand over the package only to someone who can confirm a passcode. Bingham, in a wide-brimmed hat and leaning on a cane, waited in the lot while officers and the channel’s camera crew watched from nearby vehicles.
A man got out of a black GMC Terrain with Florida plates parked next to the Old Tyme Burger Shoppe, walked past Bingham, went into the store and came back out before approaching him. He gave his name as Leo and took the package. Officers moved in as he walked back to his vehicle.
The footage shows officers taking the man to the pavement, where several of them hold him down while he is handcuffed. Bingham says in the video that the man “was fighting back and he did not want to let his phone go.” Court records list no resisting arrest charge against Lin.
Article continues below
▼ Continue reading
What Lin told investigators
The video includes portions of a recorded interview that afternoon in which Investigator Brandon Kennemore of the Miller County Sheriff’s Office questions Lin through a Mandarin interpreter.
Lin said he thought he was picking up gambling proceeds, according to the interpreter. He said a man he called his boss told him to get the money, that he did not know how much was in the bag, and that he was to take it to his motel and wait for instructions on passing it to someone else.
He told investigators he is from Taiwan, arrived in the United States on Sept. 8 for a three-week stay and had never met the boss, who he said booked his flight. He said it was the first time he had done a pickup and that he did not think it was illegal.
Kennemore pressed him on why he drove past the sting house before going to the store. Lin said the boss had given him the address and changed the plan to Family Dollar after Lin told him there were many cars around the house.
The news release on the operation that TXKtoday reported in October said Lin was in the country on a visa waiver from China. Taiwan, not China, takes part in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program.
After the arrest, the video shows a caller phoning “Frank” back and threatening to burn his house down and shoot him.
Where the case stands
The 8th South Drug Task Force arrested Lin on Sept. 23, according to the record of his first court appearance. A judge set his bond at $200,000 on Sept. 25, and he remains in the Miller County jail. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jon Beck filed formal charges Oct. 13. Each count carries five to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000.
Lin appeared Tuesday before Circuit Judge Carlton Jones with attorney Michael Friedman and an interpreter appearing by Zoom, court records show. The judge granted a defense request for more time and set a status hearing for Dec. 15, a pretrial hearing for Jan. 5 and the trial for Jan. 25.
The other man arrested that week, Mohamed Faizal Haque, 39, of Dallas, faces the same two charges in a separate case and is free on a $25,000 bond. His attorney filed a series of pretrial motions Oct. 22, including a motion to suppress evidence.
The charges are accusations. Both men are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
What the scam baiters say
In an email to TXKtoday last month, Bingham, Trilogy Media’s CEO and co-founder, praised the local investigators the channel worked with.
“Our experience with the Miller County Sheriff’s Office was better than we could have ever imagined,” Bingham wrote. “Every member of their team ran this operation with the utmost professionalism, and they’re showing the rest of the country what it looks like when local law enforcement treats cyber crime and elder fraud as crimes worth pursuing, not cases to write off.”
Chappy Grey, a scam victim advocate named in the sheriff’s office release as one of two independent investigators on the operation, said in an email that a remote team keeps the scammers on the phone while working with the decoy and officers on the ground. “It was an outstanding collaboration with the Miller County Sheriff’s Office and our law enforcement partners, and the operation was executed flawlessly,” Grey wrote.
Bingham told TXKtoday the channel plans at least three videos from the Texarkana operation and that one on Haque’s arrest will follow in December or later.
