YCSO fraud detective helps recover $65,000 for local victim of ‘Sweetheart Swindle’

(YCSO/Courtesy)

(YCSO/Courtesy)

A Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO) fraud detective this past week helped the victim of a so-called “Sweetheart Swindle” recover more than $65,000, closing a case that dated to late June, a YCSO news release reported on Monday.

On Sept. 8, after the unnamed fraud detective got a court order to freeze a fraudulent account, a financial services company received a cashier’s check for more than $65,000, a loss that it had incurred on behalf of the reporting party.

The case began in late June, when a 66-year-old Dewey man reported the fraud to YCSO deputies. The victim told deputies that he had received a letter from his financial firm thanking him for opening a wire transfer.

He soon contacted his financial advisor in California, who confirmed a wire transfer of $65,000 into a Wells Fargo bank account. Nevertheless, the victim knew something was wrong because he didn’t request the transfer.

The financial advisor provided emails appearing to have originated from the victim’s email address requesting the transfer. The victim also got a copy of the wire transfer distribution form from the advisor showing a request for the $65,000 transfer with his signature.

The YCSO fraud detective confirmed that the suspects were able to hack the victim’s email address, gain the financial advisor’s trust and request a $65,000 transfer to the Wells Fargo account provided.

The detective also learned that the victim had stopped another attempted $52,500 transfer after learning about the first transfer.

HOW IT HAPPENED

YCSO’s review of the emails, purportedly from the victim, revealed the chain of events authorizing the $65,000 transfer to a new Wells Fargo account and the attempt to transfer another $52,500 into a different account.

In early July, the fraud detective used a search warrant to obtain records on the $65,000 transfer, which identified the account holder, who was based in North Carolina.

A transaction history revealed several purchases of “Green Dot” cards at $508 each visit. After each transaction, the money was transferred or wired to a specific, named individual.

The detective contacted a police agency with jurisdiction over the business where the “Green Dot” card purchases were taking place, accessed security video and identified the buyer.

A follow-up investigation also showed the same suspect conducting wire transfers to Nigeria.

“This is common for scammers to get innocent victims to open bank accounts,” the fraud detective stated in an excerpt from his report about the case. “And stolen funds will either be wired to the account or they will have victims deposit the checks and then are later instructed where to wire or send the money from there.”

The detective added that scammers in these cases will use the person until the banking institution or law enforcement discovers that the funds are frozen.

“Or, in most cases, by the time the fraud is detected, the money has already been cleaned out of the account,” he added.

TIES TO NORTH CAROLINA

The YCSO news release states that on July 13 the detective spoke with a woman identified in the security video as the account holder in North Carolina.

She claimed meeting a person online – as most of these connections occur on dating sites – who identified himself as “Johnny Depp” and wanted to hire her to handle some financial transactions, the release added.

The suspect told her to open a Wells Fargo account so that he could deposit money into the account for distribution to his business associates.

YCSO investigators say she opened the account for the suspect and provided him with the account’s routing numbers. The suspect told her that he was from the U.S. but that he was stuck in Italy, investigators added.

Investigators stated in the release that the suspect added that he needed her to send him money so he could return to the U.S. and they could meet.

She complied, the release states. Over the past few months, she had been sending money to the suspect in Italy and Nigeria, but she became suspicious when Wells Fargo froze the account, the release states.

She then started receiving threatening text messages from a phone number on the East Coast, telling her that “men would be sent over to pick her up and interrogate her,” investigators reported.

During the investigation, the detective stated that he had found additional victims and “go-between” victims involved with the same financial institution.

“It is pretty clear that the scammers are using unsuspected victims to launder fraudulently acquired funds,” the fraud detective added in an edited version of his report. “The scammers have them withdraw or wire the money in forms that are extremely hard to trace.

“Throughout the entire time, the victims are made to believe they are in a relationship with someone that they have never met or will meet. Once they clean out the account, the victims are directed to open new accounts, or the bank has closed or frozen those accounts and the scammers move on to the next victim.”

For more information about the case, watch an FBI video detailing the scam at: fbi.gov/audio-repository/news-podcasts-inside-sweetheart-scams.mp3/view.


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