82-Year-Old Loses $921,000 to Burglars Posing as Utility Workers

An 82-year-old retired bus driver who had spent 40 years collecting rare coins and currency lost most of his collection Friday when burglars posing as utility workers stole the money in what police call a common scam.

Police said Ardell Hoffman of Elysian Park reported $921,000 in currency and gold coins missing from a bedroom safe after a man who said he was from the Southern California Gas Co. lured him to his garage, pretending to check his gas lines. Meanwhile, an accomplice burglarized Hoffman’s home, taking the money from the open safe, police said.

In an interview with a reporter, however, Hoffman said only slightly more than $7,000 was taken.

In explaining the discrepancy, Officer Anthony Konya of the Los Angeles Police Department, said Hoffman may have become concerned about publicizing how much money he kept in his home.

Hoffman told the reporter that the money taken was mostly in one envelope that contained 70 hundred-dollar bills.

In a similar scam, at least six women in Hollywood and South Los Angeles, all in their 80s, have reported being robbed in the last two weeks by con artists claiming to be with the Department of Water and Power. Los Angeles police detectives said dozens of other victims have come forth in recent months from throughout the city and that they suspect many more have been burglarized but haven’t noticed anything missing or are too scared to call police.

Police said they are checking to see if the two scams are related.

Officer Chris Smith of the Northeast Division, which covers Elysian Park, noted that the theft at Hoffman’s home is the first such incident to have occurred in his area recently.

Hoffman’s money--stacked in $1,000, $100 and $2 bills--and gold coins were taken from a combination-lock floor safe that had been left open because Hoffman, an avid currency and coin collector, was cataloguing the money when the men arrived, said Smith.

Hoffman said he was upset by the burglary, but was relieved that a prized 45-caliber automatic pistol from World War II, in which he served as a Navy gunner, was not stolen.

“I have a strong heart, so I’ll survive,” he said. “But they should catch the guys who did it because they’re no good.”

Hoffman told police a man wearing a baseball cap with a gas company logo and a yellow field-type jacket came to his home about 12:30 p.m. Friday, identified himself as an employee and said he needed to check the gas lines in Hoffman’s garage, Smith said.

Hoffman went out the back door and joined the man in the garage. Another man apparently got in through the back door and burglarized the home, Smith said. He found the safe open in the bedroom and helped himself to the cache.

The men, described as clean-cut and in their 30s, most likely did not know beforehand that Hoffman had the money in the safe, Smith said.

Hoffman said that after he left the garage and went back into the house, he noticed that the front door--which was normally locked-- was open. He immediately thought of the safe, ran to it and saw that the money was missing. By that time, the men and the cash were gone.