Text claims you owe tolls or there's a package at Amazon you didn't order are likely to be scams.
How are there a half-dozen California residents, all of whom require a Mandarin translator, facing felony charges in Douglas County related to text and emails used to allegedly extort our residents?
That’s the question underlying the cases that have popped up since September regarding a sudden spate of cybercrimes that have been rolling through the county’s courts.
We haven’t got a good accounting of how much money was involved, but we know the case in September involved $90,000, since that’s the restitution that will be ordered next month in the sentencing of Minglong Chen.
The two women arrested in January were here to pick up $18,000 in cash from a 79-year-old Gardnerville Ranchos woman. Prosecutors said a case involving a victim in Genoa involved around $50,000.
We’re certain as these cases move forward more information will be available, but that’s just a taste of how much money was involved.
We know who a couple of the victims are and they aren’t people who are easily fooled. The news is full of instances where responsible, intelligent people have been bilked out of millions of dollars because they got caught in a web of lies.
We don’t believe for a minute that the people arrested in Douglas County are the masterminds in these schemes. Everything about these cases indicates they were sent here to pick up the cash by someone with a lot of these irons in the fire.
There is a sinister aspect to these crimes beyond the theft of money. How many emails or texts does the average person receive each day? People might actually be conducting legitimate business, but who would know? Very nearly every means of communication has been tainted in one way or another because of these scams and that affects our ability to communicate.