DES MOINES — The Iowa Department of Public Safety (DPS) has uncovered an online extortion scam in which individuals pose as law enforcement officers who supervise Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces.
Reports have been filed in the Des Moines metro area and other states, according to the DPS. The scam appears to follow the same pattern:
- A male victim — let us call him John — is first contacted by an alleged female through an online dating app or website. Within a few days, at the recommendation of the female, they shift from the app site to texting.
- The texting transitions from banter to more intimate messages and results in the exchange of nude photos and discussions of meeting in the near future.
- After John, the victim, receives the nude photos from the female, he is then called by a person claiming to be the supervisor of the Iowa ICAC Task Force. The imposter claims the female is underage and that there is now child pornography both on John’s phone and on the female’s father’s phone because, the imposter says, she was using her father’s phone to communicate with John.
- The fake ICAC supervisor then tells John that John will need to replace the father’s phone or face legal action. Later that day, John receives a phone call from the imposter father, who tells John to send money, usually several hundred dollars, via wire transfer in order to replace the phone.
Investigation has revealed that the perpetrators have used phones with out-of-state area codes. The fake law enforcement officer has even set up a professional voicemail that has identified him as the ICAC supervisor with the Iowa DCI.
Anyone who believes he has been a victim of this scam or becomes a victim is urged to call a local law enforcement agency and report the incident.
