The Prescott Police Department (PPD) has seen an increase in extortion cases targeting victims through social media platforms.

According to the sergeant, there have been five cases so far this year. Joseph Pullin contrasts his year in 2022 with several people, including one boy.

Suspects in these types of cases had established relationships online with their victims, he said. You can In this case, the victim is asked to pay money to keep the images hidden from his family and friends.

“Scammers can be ‘very compelling’ because they seek to instill fear in their victims. Even after the first time you get your hands on the money, it continues before the victim realizes what’s really going on,” he explains Poulin.

According to Pauline, online dating sites are opening the door wide to make this possible. Victims range in age from 20s to 40s. “Dating sites aren’t what you think they are. People trust the natural world and realize it’s too late, and photos are littered on social his media,” he said. says.

Initially, the victim is told by the police to shut down from online communication and educate them to prevent this from happening again.

Five recent events required payments to be made through gift cards, MoneyGram and Zell. The suspect was male, a foreigner, and spoke broken English. In international cases, the police will turn her over to the FBI. The FBI is very busy and usually only investigates high-value cases, but removes information because it may be related to another case.

The social media site Snapchat, for example, is very difficult to get information from, he says. Because once something appears, it disappears, making it difficult for law enforcement to obtain information.

Also, as far as gift cards are concerned, victims are on the phone with scammers, who direct them to various stores to purchase gift cards. Victims often believe they are talking to someone they know. Or in another scam, the electric company doesn’t accept such payments, but tells you that the electricity is cut off and you need to buy a gift card to make the payment.

“Unfortunately, it’s difficult for victims to recover gift cards. We try to educate stores when people buy gift cards in bulk,” Poulin said. “We are working to alert other jurisdictions as well, as this is a national issue.”

Poulin adds:

Gas station “skimmers” were a big problem a few years ago, says Poulin. A skimmer is a small device that a thief attaches to his pump card or onto his reader to copy and steal credit card information.

Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office

Ron Norfleet, deputy chairman of the YCSO Criminal Investigative Service Board of Directors, said he had received two notifications within the past week that fraudsters were contacting real estate companies pretending to be property owners. Prescott area.

“They start by asking an agent to provide a market analysis of the property and then quickly put it on the list,” says Norfleet.

He will also ask questions to see if they are the rightful owner you are talking to and call the owner to see if they really contacted your agency You should also consider asking both buyers and sellers for photo identification.

An additional option is to look into Yavapai County’s Eagle Fraud Guard program. This allows citizens to proactively monitor and be alerted when documents are logged in Yavapai County in the name of a particular person or company.

He added that once a document has been recorded and meets the citizen’s search criteria, an email will be automatically generated and sent to the citizen notifying them that it has been recorded. The email contains basic information about the document and a link to an image of the document that the individual or company can review. Anyone who wants to use this service must subscribe with their email. Citizens can unsubscribe from this service at any time and change or update their monitoring criteria. Sign up at https://yavapaicountyaz-web.tylerhost.net/web/user/disclaimer or call 928-771-3244.

Chino Valley Police Department

Chino Valley towns did not see a significant increase in this type of call. However, according to Lieutenant Joshua McIntire, during this month or so, there have been several reported incidents of calls claiming that family members have been taken and that they will only be released if they provide money or gift cards. I’m here.

“Fortunately, the Chino Valley Police Department was contacted quickly and was able to determine that the alleged abductee was safe and not a victim of a crime. It is very difficult to track down or identify a suspect as the number calls, and the Chino Valley Police Department encourages citizens to contact us if they receive a call of this nature. We encourage them not to provide anything to the suspect, including personal information,” he said.

Prescott Valley Police Department

According to crime prevention officer/background investigator Bob Steward, anyone who threatens to provide property or services is extortion and violates Arizona law. It is wrong for someone to bully you and force you to give something to them.

“An example of this would be if someone said that they would not report the incident to the police if they gave them money or something of value. It can take the form of saying, “I won’t tell anyone about what I did.”

“Another example of extortion that has become common is for suspects to take control of your computer, but only if you send them gift cards or pay with other methods such as cash apps.” You can get it back.”

Lt. Jason Kaufman of Support Services says other common gift card frauds include not paying fines with the card, or family members getting into trouble, being in an accident, being arrested, suspected or suspected. You must send a wire transfer or gift card to the claiming authority.