Carlisle County, Kentucky (NewsFirst) — The following is a post from the Carlisle County Sheriff’s Office.
On April 11th, 2024, Wells Fargo Investments called the Carlisle County Sheriff’s Office and requested that we conduct a check welfare on some residents in Carlisle County. Wells Fargo advised that the residents were attempting to move $150,000 out of their account and into another account. They further advised us that the phone call didn’t sound right and that they felt that the residents were being forced to move the money.
Chief Deputy Perry and I responded to the location and learned that the residents were contacted by an individual claiming to be Special Agent Alexander Parker with the Department of Investigations. The scammer claimed that their computer was used to access child pornography and that their identity had been stolen. The victims asked for proof of who he was, and the scammer sent them a photo of some credentials.
The scammer convinced them to give remote access to their computer and their banking information. In addition, the scammer had informed them that they needed to move $150,000 into an account that the scammer could monitor. The scammers also had the residents keep an open phone line with them so that they could monitor the residents because they were allegedly in danger. When I checked the phone, I noticed that the line had been connected for over 3 hours.
The victims informed me that if you disconnected the number that the scammer would call back. I told them that I would disconnect the call and if they called back, they could speak with me. The scammer did call back, the person that I spoke with had an east Indian accent and spoke with broken English. I identified who I was and let’s just leave it that the conversation went extremely south. I disconnected the phone and blocked the number. I noticed that the victim’s computer was now showing that an update was taking place. When I closed that screen, I could see that the scammers were attempting to access account information on the computer, so I disconnected the computer from the internet and unplugged it.
I’m telling all of this in this press release in hopes that if you find that a family member is being scammed you can do the same thing. Disconnect phone calls and block the numbers, disconnect the computer from the internet. Next if you find that a family member or friend has given banking or financial information to a scammer immediately contact their financial institutions and get accounts frozen and changed, change passwords for any online account and honestly, wipe the computer.
I must reiterate absolutely no law enforcement agency, federal, state, or local will ever call you and ask for any money to be wired or transferred. Please speak with family members, especially our elderly family members and make sure that they know not to give out account information over the phone to ANYONE. These scammers drain entire life savings from people. I will be completely transparent here, the likelihood of them being caught and punished is next to zero! We have to be proactive in protecting ourselves and our loved ones.
Sheriff Gilbert
