The bank blocked the wire, so the courier came to her door
Banks got better at stopping the wires. The scammers adapted. Now a stranger in a sedan pulls up to the curb, and the cash leaves the house in a manila envelope.
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One hundred and forty-five bank accounts, and a phone call that said "your money isn't safe"
The Justice Department says two men from the Los Angeles suburbs built a money laundering machine out of fake IDs, shell companies, and a phone script. The script started with the words "your account has been compromised."
The woman he loved was never on the other end of the line
A New Jersey man pleaded guilty to running a romance fraud that emptied $416,155 from a single Ohio victim under the guise of a dying woman and a fake doctor begging for hospital money. The machine ran on a name, a photograph, and the word "urgent."
The courier knocked twice. The second time, the sheriff was waiting.
A Rusk County retiree clicked a pop-up and lost $47,000 in cash handed to a stranger at the door. The stranger drove up from Illinois. He was twenty-four. He came back a second time because the script told him to.
The package at the door was the whole crime
A Los Banos man, 40, was arrested at dawn on May 30 after deputies say he drove to an elderly couple's home to collect cash they had been frightened into withdrawing. The couple lost about $28,000. The man at the door was the last link in a chain that started with a phone call.
The Secret Service drove to South Huntingdon for $154,000 and one kitchen table
A $154,000 elder fraud case in a small Westmoreland County township was handed off from local police to the U.S. Secret Service this week. The size of the loss is ordinary. The handoff is the tell.
The Daily Brief