Amid a surge in jury duty scam calls, a new investigative unit has been created in Fairfax County to tackle the problem.
Special Agents Aaron Waple and Richard Buisch are laser focused on tracking down the scammers with the new unit.
“It’s just every week now we are getting three or four reports,” Waple said.
Victims report when the scammers call, they identify themselves using the name of actual Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office deputies. They tell the victim they’ve missed jury duty, that they have a document signed by the victim acknowledging that service and that there is a warrant for their arrest. To avoid it, the scammers tell the victims they need to pay a fine or bond.
“So the pressure, the anxiety, the stress, it’s like unbelievable,” Buisch said.
Next, the scammer keeps the victim on the phone, often transferring the call to a fictitious higher up to reinforce the ruse.
“My victim told me, ‘During this phone call, it sounded very legit, like I was at a police station. There was radio traffic, I was being transferred to two different people in the division,’” Buisch said.
Victims are then directed to make payment sometimes in bitcoin machines or through cash apps.
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“We have victims that have paid a lot of money. A lot of money,” Waple said. “[…] Our range for the cases we’re working is between $6,500 and $30,000.”
But these investigators are learning even with burner phones and cryptocurrency, there is a trail — and they’re following it.
“The message is that, if you scam somebody we are going to find you and we will prosecute you,” said Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid.
“It’s organized crime,” Waple said. “It’s a group of individuals working together for the common goal, and that goal is to make money by scamming others.”
But the Sheriff’s Office is also hoping to get the word out to keep others from falling prey. Its message: hang up the minute you get one of these calls. The Sheriff’s Office also just posted warning signs next to 10 county bitcoin locations.
“We don’t call people to tell them you’ve missed jury duty. We never do that,” Kincaid said. “We also don’t call people and tell them that we have a warrant for them and they have to go get money in order to pay a bond.”
The investigators also advise anyone to go online and google yourself to see what personal information is out there a scammer could try to use to keep you on the line.
The new team is already having some success, with a local woman facing charges for getting money through a jury duty scam.
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