(File Photo of a New Sewickley Township Police Car)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(New Sewickley Township, PA) A man from Brooklyn, New York who is also an undocumented immigrant from China has now received more filed charges against him of extorting money from residents through a scam that involved a telephone and a computer. Thirty-five-year-old Xinhua Chen is currently in the Beaver County Jail and is being held there without bond as a result of charges that were filed against him by the Pennsylvania State Police and the City of Aliquippa Police Department and he is also being held because of a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer as a result of that. Chen has six felony counts of charges, which are one count each of theft, theft by deception, theft by extortion, receiving stolen property, criminal use of a communication facility and unlawful use of a computer. Chen also has a charge of impersonating a public servant, which is a misdemeanor count. In the criminal complaint filed by New Sewickley Township police, a township resident gave a report to them on September 5th, 2025 that they had given $24,700 in money to “Jack,” the name of a supposed federal agent, to resolve “unpaid subscriptions” for which that resident believed they were responsible. According to the police affidavit, the resident was using their computer on September 4th, 2025 when several pop-up messages appeared, leading the victim to believe that the computer was locked and they needed to call what they thought was the Microsoft Help Desk to resolve the issue. Then, the affidavit went on to say the victim called the phone number on the screen of their computer and “was instructed by a female voice on the phone to download an application named Ultra Viewer onto their computer,” which let another person to gain remote access into the computer of the victim. The victim then got told that $24,700 in “unpaid subscriptions” was owed and to fix their computer, $20 bills for the total of that money should be withdrawn by the victim from their bank account so “Jack” the federal agent would collect the money at their residence in person. The affidavit also confirmed that “Jack” arrived in a gray SUV at the residence of the victim several hours later and opened a bag for the victim to place the money into. New Sewickley Township police also discovered on September 15th, 2025 that a man, who was identified as Chen, got arrested on September 12th, 2025 by the City of Aliquippa Police Department for allegedly stealing about $100,000 from a resident of Aliquippa who responded to a pop-up message that showed up on their computer. Chen was charged with six felony counts by extortion and deception. A preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled for October 14th, 2025 for Chen in regards to both incidents.