Phone scam using DEA agent alias targets elderly woman in Illinois
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — Another phone scam is going around in central Illinois, this time with an alias of an agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
On Friday, a 72-year-old woman got a call from a person saying she had a warrant for her arrest on account of her 'trafficking 22 pounds of cocaine,' according to the Peoria County Sheriff's office.
'We'd never call somebody and tell them [to pay the warrant] over the phone. Never, ever,' sheriff Chris Watkins said. 'No police agency does that in America. That's what we're trying to get out, but we still see people falling victim because they are very believable when they call.'
The woman was told by the caller that she had to pay the warrant with scores of $500 gift cards. She drove to HyVee, purchased the gift cards which included Sephora, Lululemon, Target and Nordstrom totaling $17,000, and gave them to the man on the phone.
'It used to be five, six, seven thousand [dollars],' Watkins said. 'Now we're seeing ten, fifteen, twenty-thousand. They're going to take as much money as they possibly can from you when they're talking to you.'
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In some cases, the scammers are going past just getting information over the phone.
'They're taking it to another level where somebody did show up to someone's house,' Watkins said. 'So usually you don't get that.'
Watkins said to make sure you spread awareness of the scams to your friends and family.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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