Grimes County law enforcement raising awareness of rising fraud cases and evolving scammers

ANDERSON, Texas (KBTX) -Scammers are consistently exploiting people’s vulnerability, and according to FTC data, consumers lost nearly $9 billion to fraud in 2022, a 30 percent increase from the previous year.

Law enforcement in Grimes County says they’ve seen a rise in reported fraud cases, prompting them to raise awareness to safeguard the community from evolving scammers and fraudsters.

LT. James Racus warned that criminals are becoming increasingly cunning, using readily available personal information from the internet against vulnerable individuals. This year alone, they have received over a dozen reports of scams involving fake documents, banking statements, and packages all designed to deceive and extract money from unsuspecting victims. Racus urged people to be cautious about what they communicate and read, as scammers make their schemes look legitimate.

“They’re getting smarter and smarter, and people have to just be more cautious of what they’re communicating and what they’re reading,” said Racus.

“It looks like something legitimate but it’s false so when people see these things they need to ask a lot of questions” he added.

Sheriff Don Sowell says he takes these crimes seriously and personally, encouraging residents to stay vigilant and seek help before falling victim.

“It’s sad to see many people in good faith try to respond and get taken as a victim, and they get played in the tune of a lot of money,” said Sowell.

Investigators say many scams originate from outside the country, but there are evident warning signs to identify them.

“Typically, what we find is that there are misspellings or there are terms that aren’t often used here in the United States like ‘from the high court of your majesty’,” said Racus. “Nobody uses that here so that’s going to be very strange to people.”

Grimes County Sheriff’s Office Facebook Post

LT. Racus emphasized the need to remain vigilant as scammers quickly adapt to new technology.

They’re using something similar to ChatGPT, and it is actually wording their documents for them, so now they’re not having those grammatical errors and the spelling mistakes and those odd terms,” Racus added.

The Sheriff’s office stresses that if anyone suspects something to be a scam, they shouldn’t hesitate to reach out and ask for help. There’s no shame in seeking assistance to protect oneself from falling prey to fraud.

(Editor’s note: Information about the scam used in this story was not released to protect the identity of the victim(s) and because the investigation is still active. )