Falmouth officer prevents elderly man from falling further victim to email scam

A Falmouth police officer intervened when he observed an elderly man falling victim to a phone scammer pressuring the man to send him money on Sept. 19, police say.

At 4:21 p.m., officer Sean Lowe walked into the Cumberland Farms located at 400 East Falmouth Highway to get a drink when he saw the elderly man putting money into the bitcoin machine in the store, according to a police report.

“As I observed the male, an employee approached me and stated that he believed the gentleman was falling victim to a scam,” Lowe wrote in the report. “I continued to observe and saw the man had a large stack of cash and was on the phone.”

Lowe wrote that that man told him he was instructed to put money into the machine because of an error at his bank.

“His phone was on speaker phone and I heard a male voice on the other end who had a foreign accent,” Lowe wrote.

Lowe said he then informed the man he might have been scammed.

Detectives later determined that the man was the victim of an email scam. The scammer convinced the man to put $600 into the bitcoin machine, but police interfered before he could send another $9,999.99.

“With blockchain transactions, it’s very difficult for law enforcement to track that money and to recover that money,” Lt. Ryan Hergt told Boston.com.

Stil, Hergt said detectives are attempting to identify the suspect responsible for the scam.

Hergt advised members of the public to be “suspicious of any unsolicited calls or emails” and to contact the police or a trusted family member to determine the legitimacy of the communication.

“We don’t often get to intervene,” Hergt said. “So this was a great incident.”