- April 26, 2024
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In January, a 19-year-old Palm Coast man was indicted on multiple federal wire fraud charges after allegedly stealing over $800,000. Last October, Flagler Schools lost $719,000 in a fraudulent transfer.
Fraud crimes are common, but sophisticated, Flagler County Sheriff’s Office's FCSO Cmdr. Mike Lutz said. The FCSO had 566 fraud cases in 2023. In 2022, there were 502 cases and in 2021, 590. So far in 2024, the FCSO has had 137 cases already.
Scams can take on a variety of forms, he said, from emails with suspicious links to people pretending to work with government agencies or even pretending to be family members.
These criminals often target the elderly, for many reasons, Lutz said: some seniors may be less technologically savvy, others could be lonely. Overall, he said, seniors can be more trusting.
“The older we get a lot of our safeguards ... start coming down, and we're much more trusting and believe what we hear,” he said.
Worse, most cases go unsolved, he said, because of the nature of the crimes. Often times, the money is sent over seas or bounced around multiple accounts. When it is traced, the crimes are tied to crime organizations, Lutz said, instead of individuals. That makes it harder to attach one name to crime and, by extension, a warrant.
And that is when a scam is even reported. Some seniors don’t bother reporting the scams out of embarrassment, Lutz said, but the truth is it could happen to anyone — even government institutions, like Flagler Schools.
The Ormond Beach Police Department has also seen an increase in fraud cases. In 2023, OBPD saw 246 reported fraud cases. In 2022, there were 231 and in 2021, there were 212. So far this year, 34 cases have been reported.
“Criminals adapted to fraudulent activity because it’s harder to find them, harder to prove it, harder to track,” Ormond Beach Police Sgt. John Dovine said.
Between 2018 and 2022, according to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, Americans lost $27.6 billion to cyber crimes — fraud, identity theft, scams, data breaches and other criminal acts using technology.
In 2022, the losses accounted for 37.9% of that five-year total: Americans reported $10.3 billion in losses to cyber crime with 800,844 complaints reported to IC3. Total losses reported by elderly victims increased 84% according to IC3's most recent elder fraud report. In 2022, 88,262 victims over the age of 60 filed a complaint with IC3, reporting a total loss of $3.1 billion.
"Tech and Customer Support schemes continued to be the most common type of fraud reported, with 17,800 complaints filed by victims over 60," the report states. "Monetary losses due to Investment Fraud reported by victims over 60 increased over 300%, more than any other kind of fraud, largely due to the rising trend of cryptoinvestment scams. In almost every crime type tracked by the IC3, losses involving cryptocurrency increased. Overall, cryptocurrency-related losses reported by the elderly increased by 350%."
Victims over the age of 60 reported an average loss of $35,101, and 5,456 victims lost more than $100,000.
Similarly, the scams that OBPD sees are typically not small amounts of money. They're also thousands and thousands of dollars, and all of which mainly, OBPD Detective Jessica Fowler said, target elderly victims.
Lutz had also seen the trend. While the number of cyber fraud crimes have gone down, he said, the total amount of financial loss has drastically increased on a national level.
A victim may receive a phone call alleging that they have missed jury duty and now have a warrant out for their arrest. To avoid arrest, the scammer then claims the victim must pay them a large sum of money, using a cryptocurrency, ATM or gift cards.
“Law enforcement, no matter who it is — IRS, Sheriff's Office, FHP, FBI, anybody — is not going to call somebody and tell them that we're coming to arrest you,” Lutz said.
Bitcoin ATMs are more commonly found in gas stations and pharmacy retail stores such as CVS and Walgreens.
"These suspects know where they are in our area," Fowler said. "They will literally give the victims directions on how to get there, and they look like normal ATMs, so the victims don't always understand, 'Hey, I'm putting in $10,000 to buy these types of tokens.' They just think it's a payment system."
Cryptocurrency isn't illegal. But people need to be aware that scammers are using it to commit crimes, Fowler said.
The suspects are usually not from the area either, OBPD spokeswoman Pauline Dulang said.
"It's not like they're creating a scam here in Ormond Beach — they're global," she said. "This is not just a threat on Ormond Beach, but this is a national security issue."
In Flagler County, some of the most common types of scams are romance scams and scam phone callers pretending to be the IRS or law enforcement, Lutz said.
The romance scam is where criminals develop relationships with the victims, Lutz said, over long periods of times, and begin asking the victim for money for plane tickets to come see them, or for help with medical bills.
“And you've developed this relationship, and you start sending the money before you realize that this is never going to amount to anything,” Lutz said.
And you've developed this relationship, and you start sending the money before you realize that this is never going to amount to anything."
— MIKE LUTZ, FCSO commander
These scams target seniors because of loneliness, he said, like where a senior may have lost their spouse.
One active fraud case OBPD is working involves a victim who lost $400,000 of her life savings, Dovine said. That was a case type referred to as a "love scam," where a suspect creates a "relationship" with their victim, sometimes for months, and once a relationship is established, the suspect continuously asks the victim for money.
The elderly victim was flagged by the U.S. Secret Service, who contacted OBPD and asked them to speak with the victim and inform her she was being scammed.
"It was very hard to tell her that this wasn't real," Dovine said. "She had developed a relationship with someone she thought was real. It's tough, especially at their age —they're lonely, sometimes they're widowed."
The best way to prevent being scammed is to know what to look for, Lutz said.
“Pay attention to where it's coming from. To the wording to see if they're asking for money,” Lutz said. “Never, never download the attachment.”
Most companies or law enforcement agencies are not going to call people. It’s a red flag right away to get an incoming call pretending to be Amazon or the IRS, he said, because those do not have outgoing call services.
Urgency is another red flag. If someone is trying to pressure a person into sending a payment, or acting right away, that’s usually a sign. Instead of responding, take a breath and think things through, Lutz said.
Sometimes it jumps right off the page at you if you just given the time that it needs to look at, to study it. And then you realize oh my god, I almost fell for that.”
— MIKE LUTZ, FCSO commander
For emails, he said, it’s best to take a second look at the text in the email — are there any awkward phrases used, or odd punctuation or capitalization? Never click the link, either, Lutz said.
“The one way we're going to battle this crime is education,” Lutz said.
The FCSO regularly hosts education seminars on fraud crimes through its Community Engagement Unit. Last year, the FCSO hosted its first Senior Summit, a two-hour long seminar on crimes and health risks seniors are more susceptible too.
The Community Engagement Unit is hosting two such presentations in early April, one at 3:30 p.m. on April 2 at the Tidelands Community and another at 6 p.m. on April 8 at the Elks Club for the Ladies Auxiliary.
Detecting a scam is all in the details, Lutz said.
“Sometimes it jumps right off the page at you, if you just given the time that it needs to look at it, to study it,” Lutz said. “And then you realize oh my god, I almost fell for that.”
