PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) — It’s a story we hear too often: an elderly person falling victim to a scam and losing their life savings.
In the latest case out of Port St. Lucie, a 78-year-old woman lost more than $200,000 in a cryptocurrency scam. However, this story has a different ending; the police actually managed to recover a large chunk of that money.
Port St. Lucie Police Chief Richard Del Toro says it all started when the scammer called the woman in December.
“(She was) contacted by someone who identified themselves as the ‘General Counsel for the Social Security Administration,’ basically telling them they received a UPS package with drugs, with money in her name and, in order to settle this type of case, she needed to wire about $200,000 — all of her money,” the chief explained.
Police say that money went to several LLC’s and was converted to cryptocurrency in overseas accounts.
Crypto transactions are extremely hard to track.
“It shields criminals because it’s decentralized and anonymous,” explained tech expert Craig Agranoff. “The transactions made with cryptocurrencies are often difficult to trace and irreversible, so it makes it easier for scammers to hide their identities and evade law enforcement.”
Fortunately, after months of investigation, Port St. Lucie Police say they managed to identify several LLC’s where a lot of that money went.
When police informed them that these weren’t legitimate transactions, those LLC’s then refunded the currency.
“Recovered about $142,000, which is just amazing because a lot of these cases, it’s very hard to track down the money, especially when it gets overseas,” Chief Del Toro told CBS12 News Friday. “Unfortunately, $60,000 or so was not able to be recovered because of the cryptocurrency being over in a different nation. It was just too hard to track, we weren’t able to get that money back.”
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While finding any money stolen in these cases is a rarity, scams that use technology and fear to prey on the elderly are becoming all too common.
“This is a stark reminder of how sophisticated and convincing scammers can be,” Agranoff remarked. “Anytime someone’s asking you to do anything in crypto, take a step back for a second, call up your local police departments.”
The chief says police have not been able to identify who was responsible for this scheme, but they do believe these crimes were committed by someone in another country, not here in the US.
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