Con artists use fake diamonds to scam victim out of thousands

CONROE, TX (KTRK) -- Police are looking into a group of con artists who went to great lengths to cheat a Conroe woman out of thousands of dollars and all started inside an area WalMart.

Elvia Moreno, 58, has been saving for years to get a new van for her handicapped son. She thought some stones might be the key to coming up with the money she still needed to raise. But what happened inside a Conroe WalMart changed all that.

"The owner of these diamonds said if you buy these diamonds from me I will sell them to you at half price," translated Teresa Luna for her mother Elvia Moreno.

On Teresa's couch it seems like a deal too good to be true, but Moreno says the woman who approached her in the WalMart earlier this week had asked for help, seemed convincing and even sold one of the diamonds in front of Moreno for $10,000.

"In her mind she is thinking, 'You know what, maybe I should get them.' Because she's thinking she has a little bit of money saved up in her savings," Luna explained.

Moreno agreed to buy four diamonds and after a stop by her bank forked over thousands for the stones. Only after she was alone did Moreno call her daughter who immediately took the stones to a jeweler.

"I said tell me what this is, and I said is it a diamond or not because I think my mother just got scammed. And he said, yes, this is a fake one, this is a cubic zirconia," Luna said.

Just to be clear, neither Walmart nor any employees were involved in this scam. Conroe police say the person who "bought" the fake diamonds WAS in on the scam, making it seem like the fake stones were worth real money.

Officers are now looking at store security camera video trying to identify the scammers.