Last Wednesday, a female Georgetown graduate student was robbed of $10,000 on the 3800 block of Reservoir Road. Metropolitan Police Department investigators believe that the student was involved in a money scam with her two aggressors and falsely reported the crime happenings to the investigators.
Graduate student Sujin Cho reported to the Department of Public Safety that she withdrew $10,000 from the Riggs Bank located on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street on Aug. 29. The student told MPD that she withdrew the money to pay for her tuition.
The student reports that she then walked north on Wisconsin Avenue to Reservoir Road and turned west towards 38th Street. At approximately 1:30 p.m., she reports that the two aggressors approached her to ask for directions to a bus stop. The aggressors then demanded that she give them her money and took her purse by force.
The victim did not report any weapons present at the scene and did not report being physically injured.
Lieutenant Brian Bray of MPD District 2 said that it was strange that no witnesses were reported on the scene.
“It was 1:30 in the afternoon … there is no way no one would have seen it,” Bray said. “Most of the robberies in the Georgetown area are the same: at night, involving females walking alone.”
He said that the detective investigating the case believes that the student was tricked by the two aggressors in some sort of money scam. Bray said that the detective believes that the two aggressors made a deal with the victim to give her something in return for withdrawing the money. “It’s likely that there was a scam. They probably told her that she’d make some money,” he said.
“[The victim] is not from this country … we believe [the aggressors] tricked her and she was too embarrassed to tell us the truth,” Bray said. “The detective will re-interview her and hopefully get the truth out of her … she kind of changed her story a little bit, which makes sense if she was tricked,” he said.
Bray said that it was also strange that Cho did not report the incident immediately. The robbery took place at approximately 1:15 p.m., but Cho did not report the incident to DPS until 3:20 p.m.
A similar incident occurred in the area approximately one and half months ago on Wisconsin Avenue. This incident also involved a large sum of money being stolen from an Asian female. The aggressor was identified as a black male, but no suspects have yet been found.
The victim in the recent robbery reported her attackers as two black females of approximately 30 years of age. One subject is described to be 5 feet 7 inches tall, with a dark complexion and black hair tied in a pony tail. She is described as wearing a long, blue dress with a long, white necklace at the scene.
The student reported her second attacker as 5 feet 9 inches in height, with a dark complexion, heavy build and long, straight black hair with streaks. She is reported to have been wearing an ivory, long, sleeveless dress at the scene.
Both subjects were reported to have left the scene of the crime in a white, four-door vehicle with a black stripe. No tags are reported to be on the vehicle. The subjects were last seen driving north on 38th Street after the robbery.
Cho could not be contacted for comment by press time.
