Can't find enforcrment help nabbing the bad guy

[JSGeare]

I well understand the problems of tracking down a scammer, but suppose the guy has actually agreed to meet me at a particular place, date and time? With the exception of the FBI who agreed to "write it up," I simply am getting no attention from my emails to enforcement.

You'd THINK that this is a ready made situation for bounty hunters. If law enforcement isn't doing it, is anyone in the private sector doing it?

I sure would hate to see this guy slip through my fingers ...and the clock is counting down to our meeting. So, what now?

[FW Admin]

It's not that easy. Firstly, in order to justify a 'sting', Law Enforcement must have clear knowledge that a crime is about to be committed. If it's just been email exchanges and conversations so far, then there's nothing upon which to base any kind of judicial warrant.

Second, the meeting itself - if LEO were concerned that it is a crime in progress, they would not be allowing a private citizen go in as bait unless there was considerable backup, full wiring to obtain evidence etc... and this would simply not happen for scammers. It would need to be something a lot bigger.

Third, even if the foregoing were possible, in order to successfully bring about a prosecution, the DA would need to ensure that all legalities had been observed (such as entrapment etc.) and that the case would not be thrown out of court on a 'technicality'.

Given the scale of what you propose, and the ultimate cost in terms of resource and manpower, it simply isn't worth it.

And of course the most important thing... scammers have been known to commit crimes of grievous assault and even murder on their victims that they have met face to face. Do you really think this is something you want to risk, for the sake of a minute chance of bringing a scammer to justice?

I would suggest that if you are "baiting" this scammer (whose location, by the way, is very likely to be outside of your country's borders) then you do it with the maximum of safety. There are several scambaiting communities on the internet that will be able to show you how to do this.

Please, do not risk your own health and safety.

[JSGeare]

Thanks for the reply.

I have no intention of actually meeting this person -he just THINKS I am. And the meeting site is no where near me. The scam itself is typical 419; the letterhead in the emails is fake and the address of the major compnay for whom Mr. X claims he works is by no means that company's actual address. So, to MY way of thinking, if you have a guy standing outside a bank holding a gun you would not wait for him to hold up the bank -you would have a chat with him. Likewise, the exchange of emails is a perfect fit to the scam, and if the cops happened to see the guy who is doing it, they should want a chat with him.

I did not follow the usual scam baiter routine in this case, because the email address appearing in his email was actually correct, and resolved to a location which is, in fact, near where he says he is (very unusual). So I proposed we dispense with all the exchange of personal information and simply meet to "do the deal," and he seems to have taken the bait. I promised that when we met, I would have my money in hand AND the documents disclosing who I really am -and he said "OK," (with some caveats). I'm not disclosing details here because I don't know if he monitors this forum.

Bottom line: if he shows up, he can be caught; if he does not, everyone goes about their business. Perhaps an hour has been wasted. I would be happy to show you the emails -but not here in public.

Does this information change anything? Thanks!

JSGeare

[John Fairheart]

Does this information change anything?

Not really. FW Admin's post is still highly relevant. The chances of getting an LEO involved is slim to none.

[JSGeare]

I'm hardly in any position to argue this with anyone who has spent much more time on the subject than me, so let me re-cast the whole line of thought. In the rare case when we can have the bad guy specifically pinned down to a place and time -what do we then do? NOTHING? Surely, surely, there must be SOMETHING...

[FW Admin]

I can only reiterate what I have already stated, JSGeare; please believe me when I tell you that I fully understand your frustration - it's a feeling that is shared all too many times by those of us who volunteer our time and resources on here.

There are some of us that have, in the not too distant past, been heavily involved with Law Enforcement in trying to apprehend these scammers. Even with their considerable support, the ultimate, tragic price was paid by the victim and yet the perpetrator was unable to be convicted of any offence due to, among other things, lack of material evidence, technicalities and jurisdictional issues.

Many of the arrests of these scammer gangs that are reported are the result of what is sometimes several years of painstaking investigations, and usually with a not inconsiderable amount of inter-jurisdictional cooperation. This is never easy to obtain, and there needs to be a substantial amount of money involved in the alleged frauds, and/or a very real threat to public safety or security.

Simply meeting someone after an exchange of emails is, at best, a very thin basis on which to make an arrest and, without further physical evidence of a crime in progress, charges are minimal at best... and that's if the public prosecutor deems it a sufficiently tight enough case to warrant it.

I can only inform you of the legalities involved - trust me when I say that if it was that easy, an extremely high percentage of these scams would simply not be happening due to the rates of conviction that would ensue. We have always maintained (and still do) that the best defence against these scams is to be aware of them, to recognize them when they appear, and to ensure that everyone we know is sufficiently educated to be able to ignore them. This way, these scams will not be profitable for the scammers because it hits them where it hurts the most - in their pockets. No profit = having to find honest methods of income.

Maybe one day, someone will actually do something to gain a better cross-jurisdictional cooperative, and to ensure that countries all over the world are corrpution-free at the highest levels, so that a modicum of consistency will exist regarding crime and punishment. Until then, we can only do what we can within the law that affects us.

[Checkszonegirl]

I truly feel your pain. I am the owner/operator of a check cashing store. I have so many customers that come in with FRAUDulent checks and they actually think they are real. So I copied this particular letter and called Western Union "helpdesk". Please note we have Western Union in our stores and are an agent. We told them about this particular scam and that the customer was suppose to wire money back to this person in Canada. We asked them if they would give us a fake control number and "flag" it so that when the person received this money, they could be picked up by the police. Western Union would NOT do it. It's really frustrating that you can't get more cooperation out of companies like Western Union and Moneygram so we can catch these people. They were NO help whatsoever.

[Frazzle]

I fully understand your frustration too.

However, let me play Devil's Advocate for a moment.

You want to get the FBI/police to set up a sting which would cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

1. How sure are you that a bad guy will actually show? (Often scammers will ignore a meeting, and come up with some excuse in their next email.)

2. How sure are you that if a person does show that it is the person you've been communicating with? (Typically, scammers stay in Nigeria or wherever and get some local associate to play the part of the diplomat.)

3. Assuming someone does show up, what are the odds that they will say or do something incriminating, or have something incriminating on them (i.e. what are the odds of an arrest)?

4. If the scam is international (i.e. your scammer is not in the USA), no crime has been committed in the USA. All your police can do is ask the Nigerian (or wherever) police to find and arrest and prosecute the scammer.

[Checkszonegirl]

I understand your point and point taken. It's just so frustrating. It just makes me so mad at the people being scammed also. If you know you haven't worked for this money, why on earth would someone be sending you money they "owe you", but ask you to return most of it to "them"? I see it about 4-5 times a week in my check cashing stores. Same letters, same amount of checks, just different people sending them.

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

[Frazzle]

If you know you haven't worked for this money, why on earth would someone be sending you money they "owe you", but ask you to return most of it to "them"?

The typical 'representative' scam goes like this...

The victim applies for and gets a job as a representative of some company. The company has problems cashing checks received from the victim's country. So the victim's job is to receive checks, cash them, and forward the money to the company (by untraceable Western Union). They get to keep 10% or so of the check value as their 'commission'.

As you say, the checks are fake, and when they bounce the bank reverses the deposits and the victim is left out of pocket.

[grasshopper]

VIPcarolinehotele has scammed us out of almost $4000. 'She' made the mistake of calling me with a traceable phone number, which has been traced to Chester Illinois, USA, which is also my country. What can be done legally? The town only has 8000 people with just over 2000 households. Can it be traced to an individual? If 'she' can be found, would a lawsuit be of any help? Who in that town is logged in to dating.ru or club 10 of russia. Vladimir Dremlyuga was the recepitant of the money grams, his name has been connected with both companies.

[Nyla]

VIPcarolinehotele has scammed us out of almost $4000. 'She' made the mistake of calling me with a traceable phone number, which has been traced to Chester Illinois, USA, which is also my country.

And what do you mean by "traceable"? Having an apparently local area code and exchange doesn't exactly make a number traceable. It just tells you the rough geographic area where the phone number was originally issued. And in this day and age of number portability, that can mean squat. I work in the American south with someone originally from the Northeast. He retains his Boston area cell phone number despite living 900 miles from there for at least two years.

Also, caller ID can be faked pretty easily. You couldn't be sure unless you were able to get the court to issue the proper legal documents to get phone records.

What can be done legally?

Frankly, not much, unless you have some awfully good evidence, a substantial loss, and some hope of identifying the person who scammed you. You're going to need more than a telephone number, fake name and free, anonymous email address. And Moneygram receiver information is completely useless in most cases, assuming that's the method you used to pay the scammer. Scammers don't tend to use real names or addresses, and they can generally pick up transfers with no ID or fake ID. Especially in countries where scammers are often active. The local clerks are sometimes getting a cut of the proceeds.

The town only has 8000 people with just over 2000 households. Can it be traced to an individual?

You can still quite easily get an anonymous, prepaid cell phone in the United States, for just about any location. Anyone can stroll into a big box store and purchase a completely untraceable Tracfone (or similar) and register it with fake details, paying in cash. No ID required. In fact, some services require no registration whatsoever, just that you make a billable call to activate the number. And nothing would stop someone non-local from driving through, buying the phone, and driving a few thousand miles further and waiting a while before using it. I'm sorry, but an apparently local telephone number doesn't amount to much when it comes to identifying someone.

It may also be a VOIP service, similar to Skype. You can get a "local" number in many cities with services like those, though, typically, it's larger cities.


If 'she' can be found, would a lawsuit be of any help?

Help in what way? If you don't have at least enough evidence for an arrest, you probably aren't going to have enough evidence for a civil case. And it would probably cost you far more to wage a civil suit than it's worth.

Who in that town is logged in to dating.ru or club 10 of russia.

Without some darned fine evidence and police involvement, plus a judge willing to issue a search warrant or subpoena for all the server logs involved, you have no way of knowing.

And even if you had all the IP addresses that have logged into those sites, you may still never identify anyone. They could quite easily be using public computers at the local public library, web cafes, or free wireless networks that allow guest access. My local coffee house offers free access on the premises. Anyone with a laptop could walk in and surf the internet, without giving any identifying information. They don't typically ask for your ID when you order a latte.

Vladimir Dremlyuga was the recepitant of the money grams, his name has been connected with both companies.

And was he supposedly in Russia? If so, the Moneygram information is definitely going to be pretty useless. And you've got the additional problem of international jurisdiction issues. If the Russian authorities don't care, it won't matter how enthusiastic your local authorities are.

And there's the issue of whether or not a crime was even committed. You haven't stated how this person scammed you, but I get the feeling it was a romance scam. If you met someone on a dating site who asked you to send money to family/friends in Russia for some purpose and you willingly made a gift of that money, that's a really gray area legally. Even if she did promise you she would use it for a visit or something similar, it would be very hard to prove that she defrauded you. Verbal agreements are pretty useless in court. If all she did was call you up and promise that if you sent her the money, she would buy a plane ticket with it, or claim that her ailing uncle needed it for food or rent, it's pretty much your word against hers.

Unless you had a legal contract of some sort, or the money was framed as a short term loan, what would you be suing her for? Without knowing the details, I suspect it would probably fall more into the same legal area as giving a romantic attachment an engagement ring. When the engagement is broken, the ring is the recipient's to keep or give back at their discretion. A gift generally remains a gift, even if it was obtained by making false promises of love and marriage.

It's possible that she could be meeting the legal definition of fraud if she's using a false identity and can be shown to be deliberately lying for financial gain, but actually proving it to the satisfaction of the court would be difficult. And the police would have to be willing to pursue an investigation in the first place. If it was a small loss, they may have to make the judgment call that their limited resources would be better spent on another crime.

In other words, possible, yes, as most things are. Probable? Not at all.

[Frazzle]

What Nyla says is all true.

Nevertheless, I suggest that you approach your local police with the evidence you have, and lay a complaint. They may decide that there is sufficient information to identify the owner of the phone, and to investigate further.

Beyond that, there is very little that anyone can do to help you.