A 68 year old Lincoln woman is out nearly $150,000 after falling for a fraud.
Lincoln Police spoke with the woman on Tuesday, July 19th outside the NW Team Station on North 27th. She told officers that on July 11th, she received a phone call from an unknown party saying there had been an unauthorized purchase of a laptop on her Amazon account. She followed messaging prompts and was transferred to someone who identified himself as a DEA agent.
The woman was told that several credit cards and bank accounts had been opened using her name across several states. She was told to withdraw as much money as she could from her bank account and those funds would be placed in a different account to verify it wasn’t laundered.
The woman withdrew $25,000. The next day she was again called by the person pretending to be a DEA agent and told her she would need to withdraw another $5,000, which she did. She was instructed to put the money in bags outside her home and an agent would pick them up and provide her with a cashier’s check. The funds were taken but no check was left.
The next day, the woman again was contacted and told to purchase $120,000 in gold. She did purchase $119,294.84 worth of gold. Two days later, she was again contacted and received instructions to put the gold outside her home and an agent would pick it up shortly. About an hour after she put the gold outside, she noticed it was gone. That is when she became suspicious and contacted police.
The total loss is $149.294.84.
The Lincoln Police Department would like to remind everyone that at no time will law enforcement request to be paid in cash, or precious metals, as part of an investigation. We would also like to remind everyone to be extremely suspicious of anyone asking for your bank account number and to contact your financial institution who will assist in verifying the legitimacy of the request before taking any additional action.