The 18-karat gold medallion a priest gave an 86-year-old San Jose man at his wedding more than 50 years ago disappeared in the seconds it took two strangers to drape a counterfeit chain around his neck in a Costco parking lot. It was not a one-off — it is the signature move of a distraction-theft ruse Bay Area police have been warning about, and arresting people for, since at least 2022.

The Almaden Plaza theft, reported this week by NBC Bay Area, was framed as one family's misfortune. But the choreography — pushy offers of help, religious flattery, an unwanted "gift" of jewelry, fast hands and a getaway car — echoes cases police have described from San Jose to San Ramon. Officers keep making arrests and reissuing the same advisory, and the ruse keeps recurring, which raises a question the coverage rarely does: if this is an organized, mobile crew, why does a warning from 2022 read almost identically to the one seniors are hearing now?

The pattern is easiest to see if you start not with the victims but with the method. San Ramon police Capt. Denton Carlson laid it out to ABC7 in 2022, in a case the station called "a crime ring sweeping California"↗ (external source, opens in a new tab): the thieves approach an older person, force closeness with conversation, and use a fake jewelry "gift" as cover. "They slip the jewelry on the unsuspecting victim, and at the same time they're engaging, they'll take it back," Carlson said. His agency alone tied the crew to 10 reported cases and arrested two suspects from Orange County — a getaway that ran across county lines. That 2022 ring was described as targeting elderly Asian American shoppers and linked to Eastern European crews; this week's victims are a Spanish-speaking couple. What matches is the method and the cross-county mobility, not the people.

This week's case runs the same play. An elderly couple finishing a grocery run were swarmed by two women who insisted on loading the trunk despite the 86-year-old husband's refusal in Spanish, then leaned on piety — that the young are obligated to care for their elders — to hold his attention. One kissed the 75-year-old wife's hand and pushed a $20 bill on her, which she threw down in alarm. As a necklace went on the husband "as a gift," the couple's daughter told NBC Bay Area, "they are somehow removing his chain." What vanished was the medallion the priest who married the couple gave the husband a half-century ago, replaced with a fake. A second car carrying at least two men then boxed the couple in so they couldn't follow.

It has happened before, and nearby. In February 2025, NBC Bay Area documented↗ (external source, opens in a new tab) an almost identical con: strangers pushing "better" jewelry, overwhelming an elderly target, then yanking off the genuine gold and speeding away. The victim's daughter said the same pair had been spotted working seniors outside the Matrix Casino and other South San Jose businesses, and that the scheme had already surfaced in Palo Alto, San Ramon and Milpitas. Milpitas police issued an alert. San Jose police took a report and named no one.

Put those alongside this week's theft and the uncomfortable throughline is not the crime but the response. Arrests do happen — San Ramon booked two suspects, and departments across the region have publicized similar collars. Yet the prevention script barely changes from year to year: don't flash jewelry, keep distance from strangers who flatter you, refuse the gift. No agency has publicly claimed the crews are being dismantled faster than they can be replaced, and the warnings land on the people least able to act on them mid-hug.

That leaves the Almaden Plaza couple where other Bay Area seniors have landed before them — a report filed, a hope lodged. The advice repeated in this week's coverage, that shoppers should stay alert and trust flatterers less, is reasonable and also a quiet concession: the burden falls on 75- and 86-year-olds in parking lots, not on whoever keeps moving the stolen gold. San Jose police have not said whether this theft is connected to any earlier case, or whether anyone has been arrested. Nearly a week on, the couple say they are done accepting help from strangers.