An Owings Mills man was arrested this week after allegedly taking more than $1 million from a 74-year-old man in a gold bar scam, local authorities said.

Montgomery County Police arrested Vipul Thakkar, 52, on Wednesday. He faces multiple accounts of attempted theft and is being held without bond. He does not have an attorney listed in online court records.

The Bethesda victim, who was not named, first received an email that alerted him to a suspicious deposit made into his bank account and instructed him to convert his money into gold to protect his assets, police said in a news release.

The victim purchased a total of over $1.1 million in gold bars and arranged to have the gold picked up by associates of Thakkar 10 times from March to June, according to police.

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After he made a final purchase of $240,000 in gold bars, the victim said he saw news reports of a woman who was scammed out of $900,000 in a similar scheme. He contacted the police department’s Financial Crimes Unit for help.

A Montgomery County detective contacted Thakkar and arranged to pick up gold bars at the victim’s home. A detective posing as the victim handed a package to Thakkar, who got into a car and drove away, police said. Police stopped and arrested the suspect shortly after.