The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field office in Los Angeles this week warned of an increasingly popular scam designed to drain the retirement accounts of seasoned citizens.
The sophisticated scam, which has been taking place since 2024, involves three phases of impostors working together to deceive an intended victim, Fox News reported.
In the first phase, a “tech support specialist” from a financial institute contacts victims to warn them they may have experienced some type of bank fraud. To check if their accounts are safe, the caller asks seasoned citizens to download special software to determine if any unauthorized charges have been made.
If the scammers find a lucrative account with lots of money in it, the victim is told to expect a call from the “fraud department” at their financial institution. That caller then claims the accounts were accessed by a “foreign hacker” and their funds are in danger of being stolen.
The second caller then informs the victim that, for his or her protection, the funds must be transferred to a “safe” account held by a third party. To avoid raising suspicions at the real financial institution, the caller directs the victim to withdraw the money over multiple transactions over a period of days or even months.
Finally, a third imposter, representing a federal government employee, directs the victim to move all the money to a fake “alias” account to keep the funds safe. It’s during the process of moving money to the alias account that it is often stolen.
Pete Nicoletti, chief information security officer at Check Point, told Fox News the scam is so sophisticated that criminals are using artificial intelligence to target people based on hobbies and other special interests.
The full story can be found at Fox News.
