A Keystone, Colorado resident fell victim to a sophisticated crypto scam last week, with fraudsters losing more than $6,000 in Bitcoin after evading law enforcement officials and threatening them with a subpoena, according to the Summit County Sheriff's Office.
According to a document reviewed by Decrypt, an additional $4,000 transfer was in the works, although agents were able to intervene before the push.
However, the Summit County Sheriff's Office said that during the call, the criminals obtained previously confidential personal information.
“A deputy has never called anyone to inform them of an arrest warrant and then in exchange for gift cards, money orders or bitcoins,” the office said in its incident report.
The report's call logs indicate similar incidents continue to occur across the state, with a separate incident in Denver describing how a woman lost nearly $5,000 in Bitcoin after scammers pretending to be Denver police officers made sure she avoided a jury duty.
Believing that the victim should have ignored the judicial notice, she followed the perpetrator's instructions by sending a fake order through a Bitcoin ATM.
When she contacted Denver police to verify the transaction, she discovered she had been scammed. Although the bank was notified of the fraud, the patrol report said “it is unlikely that the money was recovered.”
The case mirrors an incident in September in which Keystone Bank employees blocked another resident from transferring $8,000 in crypt after receiving a similar scam call. Scammers are increasingly using number spoofing techniques to make calls appear to be from legitimate law enforcement agencies.
Colorado's crypto fraud landscape has expanded significantly, with state investigators reporting more than 1,300 cases in 2023 totaling $81 million in losses. According to law enforcement data, the state ranks 15th nationally for crypto-related crimes.
FBI Denver also issued a warning earlier this year in relation to token fraud, including high-profile cases, some $ 3.2 in crypto that some pastor and his wife misused, targeting victims through their Christian community, a token shilling called INDXcoin.
“These fraudsters can be aggressive and persuasive,” the Sheriff's Office warned, adding that crypto transactions are particularly attractive to fraudsters due to their irreversible nature and the difficulty of tracking funds after they have been transferred.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair.
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