The Lexington Police Department is warning citizens of a phone scam involving someone who claims to be a police officer.
They say that two people have contacted them in reference to the scam. Those people said that a man who identified himself as a sergeant with the Lexington Police Department called them and said that a family member had been involved in a traffic accident and that they would need to send money.
Detectives with the Financial Crimes Unit followed up with the information and contacted the scammer.
http://liarcatchers.com/fraud_investigation.html
They found out that he was calling from a number with an 866 area code and identified himself as Sergeant Christopher Wallace. He said that the victim’s daughter had been involved in a traffic collision on I-64 while talking on her cell phone and she was transported to a hospital where she received stitched in her mouth and was unable to talk.
The scammer said that since the daughter was talking on a cell phone while driving, the daughter was going to be taken to jail for a charge of “Reckless Endangerment,” unless a fine of $1,400 was paid within 20 minutes.
The scammer also provided a local bank location in order to transfer money to the district attorney and detectives were told to call back with the money. When detectives called the scammer back, they were told that one of the people in the collision had died and the charge was now going to be involuntary manslaughter.
Money would now need to be transferred via Western Union to an attorney in New York.
This investigation is ongoing. Police said that the two victims who reported the scam did not send money.
As a reminder, the Lexington Police Department will never contact anyone via telephone and ask that money be sent via a third party money processor such as Western Union or MoneyGram. If you get a call like this, police say you should just hang up. Do not provide any personal information or send money.
