Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre announced detectives recovered over $122,000 for a Larose woman who was the victim of a phone scam.
Earlier this month, detectives opened an investigation after a Larose resident reported having been scammed. The week prior, the victim reported receiving a call from a person who identified themself as a special agent with the Social Security Administration. The scammer told the victim she had to wire nearly over $93,000 to a bank account. She received another call the next day from the same individual saying she needed to wire another amount over $50,000 to the same account. A few days later, after wiring both accounts, the victim reported it to the bank after having sent over $146,000 to the scammer.
Detectives were assigned to the case. Upon working with the bank, they were able to locate the scammer’s account which still had over $122,000 of the victim’s money. Detectives then obtained a seizure warrant for the money and returned those funds to the victim. A search warrant for the account holder has also been submitted and investigators are waiting on those results.
While Sheriff Webre was happy to return the funding, he cautioned residents that the victim, in this case, was extremely lucky. “In most of these scam cases, the money has been voluntarily given by the victim to the scam artists and is nearly impossible to recover,” said Sheriff Webre. “This is due to a variety of reasons including the fact that these calls typically originate out of state or even out of the country. Even being able to recover the amount we did in this case, the victim still lost over $23,000 which may never be recovered. We implore residents to stop and think before they ever wire money to anyone.”
Scam artists are forever changing the form in which they present themselves, but the method is often the same: asking people to send payment immediately via prepaid debit, electronic money order, or electronic wire transfer. “They are trying to fast-talk you into parting with your money, and they don’t want you to have an opportunity to think about it or do any research,” said Sheriff Webre. They may take the form of a government agency, a healthcare or utility provider, or even law enforcement.
Anyone who has been a victim of a scam should contact local law enforcement to report it. For more information on how to educate your loved ones on signs and examples of scams and how to help yourself if you’ve been a victim, go to LPSO.net/Scams.