WARNING: HOLIDAY PHONE SCAMS CONTINUE IN EL PASO, TEXAS AREA
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El Paso County Sheriff's Office
3850 Justice Dr., El Paso, Texas 79938
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Jesse Tovar /Public Information Officer
(915) 538-2119
Pager: (915) 533-0733 (#5370)
EMAIL: jtovar@epcounty.com
Website: EPCSO.ORG     |
 
SECTION: El Paso County Sheriff's Office
(WHITE COLLAR CRIMES UNIT)
EVENT: PUBLIC ADVISORY: HOLIDAY PHONE SCAMS ON THE RISE IN EL PASO COUNTY, TX
LOCATION OF OCCURENCE: EL PASO COUNTY, TX
DATE / TIME: HOLIDAY SEASON 2010
RESULT: ONGOING SCAMS |
RELEASE DATE / TIME : 12-20-10 3:55 PM
EL PASO COUNTY, TEXAS- The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office continues to warn the El Paso Community of ongoing phone scams as unscrupulous scammers are continually randomly calling people scheming them out of $100’s-$1,000’s of dollars.
Sheriff’s Investigators urge the community NOT to fall for these scams.
The method of operation for the on-going scam is as follows:
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CALLER (scammer): calls residences landlines & makes contact with the residents /victim.
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CALLER: tells / convinces Victim that they are related & one of their family members was involved in an accident in Mexico & are in need of money because the Mexican police were asking for money to pay for another parties medical bills that was injured in the accident .
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CALLER: then provides victim information on how to send the money via western union.
(At this time it is unknown how the phone numbers were being selected).The wire transfers were requested to Mexico Cities such as: Villahumada and Jalisco, Mexico.
One example of a conversation is as follows (translated from Spanish): “Tia it is me do you recognize my voice.”
It appears that in an attempt to make out the voice, the victim would unknowingly say a family member’s name that they felt they voice sounded like. The CALLER then say they were that person and continue with the story about the accident.
Some phone numbers retrieved thru Victim’s caller id’s are::
(313) 087-9437 / (554) 984-4629 / (554) 984-9484 - It is unknown if these are American of Mexican phone numbers.
Just last month, Sheriff’s Officials warned the community about the ongoing “MYSTERY SHOPPER” scams (click here…).
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in March of 2001 was the first Sheriff’s Office in the State of Texas to be Internationally Accredited from CALEA and is now the recipient of the First CALEA Tri-Arc award in Texas (4th in the Nation) to have accreditations in: Law Enforcement, Communications, Training Academy