Elderly resident loses $295,000 in scam

Monday, April 10, 2006 posted 02:47 AM EDT

LANSING | An elderly resident was conned out of $295,000 -- virtually her life savings -- in a series of scams over the previous year, Police Chief Dan McDevitt said.

A network of con artists used three different types of scams to persuade the woman to mail 12 pounds of money to Europe and to wire money to Canada, McDevitt said.

The woman got $8,200 back when her bank noticed the con artists attempted to cash two of the wire transfers in fraudulent accounts in Canada, he said.

McDevitt declined to identify the woman or provide additional personal information about her.

"The Lansing police were not notified of these scams until the entire amount had already been lost," he said. "Her bank had no knowledge until they got word from Canada that a couple of things were fraudulent."

Lansing police contacted the FBI about the incidents, but federal investigators did not sound hopeful about tracking down the culprits, McDevitt said.

"We've contacted everybody," he said. "They all tell us the same thing: These people are professional scam artists. These people are very, very difficult to catch."

In the first scam, a man claiming to be from Europe telephoned the woman to say he found two large bags of money and needed money from the woman to ship her share of it, McDevitt said.

"She sent him the money and, needless to say, never received any bags of money or anything else," he said.

Postal records indicate the woman sent packages to Europe totaling 12 pounds, McDevitt said.

In the second scam, which is common, a man telephoned from Canada to tell her she had won a large amount of money in the lottery, he said.

Over several months, the woman wired money to the "Canadian Lottery," McDevitt said.

"These offenders are smart enough to know that wire transfers monitor large transactions, so they instructed the victim to send smaller amounts of money -- $2,500 to $4,000 at a time," he said.

Fortunately, the woman's Illinois bank detected that two checks totaling $8,200 were sent to fake accounts, McDevitt said.

In the third incident, a man telephoned to say he had access to unclaimed money in an account whose owner died, McDevitt said. The man said to gain access he needed money for "legal stuff."

"This is a variation on a pigeon drop," McDevitt said. "Somebody comes up to you, opens up a bag and it has money it. He says he has a friend who's an attorney who says if he puts up earnest money, he can keep the money in the bag.

"He says, ‘You look nice. You look like nice people. If you can put $1,000, I'll split it with you.'"

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