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Las Vegas police seek information on scam artists
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Scam artists have tried to profit from a hit-and-run accident that left a 17-year-old girl dead on New Year's Day, Las Vegas police said Friday.
Police said someone called a random woman this week and said her son had been jailed for his involvement in a hit-and-run accident in which Mayra Lorena Verduzco was killed.
The caller first asked the woman for $5,000 to bail her son out of jail, Detective William Redfairn said. The next day, someone pretending to be a prosecutor from the Clark County district attorney's office called the woman and asked for $450,000 in exchange for leniency for her son.
Redfairn said the woman who was targeted for extortion was not connected to the victims in the case, and neither she nor her son was a suspect in the hit-and-run. Her son wasn't even in Nevada at the time, the detective said, and it's unclear why she was contacted. No money was exchanged.
Verduzco was a passenger in a car about 2:15 a.m. Sunday when the vehicle was rear-ended by a 2004 Cadillac DeVille at Eastern Avenue and Canosa Avenue.
She died, and several others were injured, including her 2-month-old daughter.
No one has been arrested in either the accident or the scam.
Anyone with information on either case may call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.
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Don't worry, it was probably a few LAWYERS trying to make a few buck in between shooting their tv commercials.
Sounds like a re election campaign to me, just with different needs. Maybe
It still baffles me why elderly people continue to get scammed. They have lived longer than us, have been through more crap than us and obviously know what the world is like from being around that long. Why do they continue to fall for this crap??? Is there an old persons virus that makes you believe everything anyone tells you when u hit certain age?
Bob_Realist wrote: We still haven't received a description of the perps even though there were multiple witnesses....
That's because the RJ has stopped reporting on minorities due to claims of racism. But Cadillac Deville with multiple perps fleeing into the night... guess.
We still haven't received a description of the perps even though there were multiple witnesses. How about some voice and grammar interpretations from the phone calls? We rely on the media to provide us information so we can help law enforcement find the killers as well as the scammers.
The reason this scam works so well is the caller tells grandpa, "Please, please, please promise me you won't tell anyone. I'm so embarrassed and I will pay you back as soon as I get out of jail." So, gramps, being a good old guy, doesn't check with the parents and wires the money. As Slam715 said, it's an old scam.
I believe they can find this guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, or he might be found at the nearest golf course.....
These guys are missing their calling. They need to go after Shelly's and Harry's jobs.
This scam is actually one that has been around for awhile, my Dad got a call from someone saying "Grandpa" which then my Dad replied with the name of his grandchild and the person said yes I've been arrested in Canada for an accident I need bail money and then gave instructions on where to wire money. My Dad did so believing it was my son. The next day he got a call similar to the second call in this story asking for more money my Dad then called me and I called my son and he was in bed at home in California and had never been to Canada at all. He since then has gotten a second call from a girl in which he was smarter and asked which one, she stuttered and replied with a name in which he does not have a grandchild. This is the first I've heard it being specific to a certain accident however. Elderly & everyone BEWARE!!!!
Very ineffective 'scam'. Let us not waste any taxdollars on these imbeciles. They will clearly not actually successfully scam anyone since they are completely incompetent. - E