Leawood police warning of rise in cryptocurrency scammers
LEAWOOD, Kan. — A random, mysterious text you receive could be from a scammer.
Police in Leawood want the public to be aware of an uptick in crimes that involve scammers seeking payment in cryptocurrency.
Seventy-year old Larry Klein said the scammers who contacted him on Monday were very persuasive. He says they first contacted him through a text message, saying they needed him to call for a refund related to an account he didn’t recognize.
Klein told Leawood Police officers the scammers, who appear to be from overseas, convinced him to deposit $25,000 into an account using a Bitcoin ATM.
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“By the time I got home, that’s when I walked in and my wife and daughters said ‘you’ve been scammed.’ I broke down and that was it,” Klein said.
Scams like this are growing more common, according to police investigators, who say scammers tend to focus on seniors.
“They literally mind-altered me. I was like a zombie. I was in a zone, and couldn’t get out of it,” Klein said, describing the convincing tactics the scammers used.
Investigators were able to recover $17,000 for Klein by tracing the transaction’s blockchain. Over a two-year stretch, Leawood detectives have recovered or frozen $1.5 million for scam victims.
Police advise the public to be skeptical of unusual texts, emails and online pop-ups. Some scammers even impersonate police officers while demanding money.
Banks will never require a customer to purchase cryptocurrency, and according to Leawood Police Det. Mark Teerink, nearly any unusual instruction to deposit money into crypto ATM will lead to trouble.
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“Anybody can fall victim to this. I’ve had victims beat themselves up relentlessly because they think they’ve been such fools and they’re not. These people are savvy. These con artists are savvy,” Teerink said.
Moreover, Det. Teerink says if a stranger contacts you asking you to buy cryptocurrency, and you don’t recognize them, talk with someone you trust before following through. He cites statistics from the F-B-I showing five-point-six billion dollars lost to these scams.
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