Tuscaloosa County Investigators Warn of New and Evolving Scams

A Tuscaloosa County investigator is warning of new scams where criminals are taking steps to spoof police phone numbers, create fake warrants, research personal details and even find pictures of peoples' homes in an effort to rip them off.

Josh Hastings, a spokesperson for the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office, said while scams are getting more sophisticated, it's harder than ever to solve them as con artists convince marks to send them difficult-to-trace cryptocurrencies.

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"In one scam we're seeing a lot more of, the individual will contact you via phone, provide some basic identifying information about your age and where you live, things like that, then tell you that you've missed jury duty, a lot of times for federal court," Hastings said. "They sometimes even create fake paperwork to send you that looks like a warrant."

The scammers then reportedly tell their would-be victims to come to pay a fine at the sheriff's office to take care of the warrant, only to come back just after and suggest the kiosk where you would do so is down for maintenance or otherwise out of operation.

The callers then tell people to instead go to a local store, maybe a Winn Dixie, and find a kiosk where they can buy cryptocurrency with traditional cash. They instruct the mark to buy some amount of Bitcoin, usually $500, and send it to the caller so they will allegedly take care of the faked warrant.

Scams are more advanced than ever, and some callers may even spoof real law enforcement phone numbers, but of course, no legitimate police agency will call and offer to cancel a warrant for Bitcoin.

"That's been one of the newest trends that we've seen popping up and we've had several victims, unfortunately, fall prey to that," Hastings said. "At this point, because Bitcoin is still fairly new, law enforcement has a harder time - you can't just write a search warrant and boom you've got their account. It's possible that as we see more of these scams, with specialty training, it may get easier to work these cases. But right now, for the most part, as soon as that money is sent over, it's gone."

A second scam making the rounds is even more nefarious, although Hastings said TCSO is not yet aware of anyone taking the bait.

"Another one we've seen recently is scammers sending an email to your personal or business account and claiming they've been able to get into your phone or computer and found something disturbing like child pornography or some other illegal material," Hastings said. "They say if you don't send us some amount of money in Bitcoin, we're going to release all this information about you and we've seen them then provide basically a picture of the front of someone's house and that appears just to be a screenshot from Google Street View, but it adds this false legitimacy to their claims."

If the public isn't aware of the scheme, Hastings said it's only a matter of time before someone falls for it.

"I don't know of any victims who followed through and lost money, but we have gotten several calls from people who've gotten these kinds of emails and are obviously concerned," Hastings said. "Someone who is involved in some questionable activity on the internet, or maybe thinks they're protecting a loved one or thinks that kind of claim would damage their reputation even if it's not true, that may cause them enough fear to respond to that kind of pressure."

Hastings said neither the sheriff's office nor any other legitimate agency would reach out via phone or email about these issues, and people should be vigilant.

Such a call should be a major red flag, and Hastings said scammers will try to keep their victims on the phone for as long as possible and make them send money before the call wraps up.

If at any point you feel you may be communicating with a scammer, hang up and call the sheriff's office or the other law enforcement agency allegedly involved and ask them directly about any claims made.