Scammers Targeting Families of Incarcerated Individuals

Ryan Bingham Duff

Thesandman295067@hotmail.com

Freelance

SCAMMERS TARGETING FAMILIES OF INCARCERATED INDIVIDUALS

DENTON COUNTY – Close relatives of a loved one that are recently arrested, are contacted by a caller on the other end identifying as law enforcement to extort a sum ranging from $1,000 – $20,000 for the release of the individual via stipulating their conditions included with bail such as ankle monitors, anger management classes, and other legal fees. Once paid, through Zelle, CashApp, Chime, etc. it may be already too late. And it’s nearly impossible to find the culprit. Considering that, in many cases the number is masked and likely, they may use burner phones to avoid being traced. Bail bondsmen everywhere shed light on this growing problem.

According to local Bail bondsman, Shawn Cagle, owner of City Hall Bonds, believes that they obtain the inmates information through the jail’s roster, like eBonds and social media like Facebook. Next, they study the inmates’ relatives through sites such as TLO (The Last One) and Peoplefinder.com and masquerade as prison officials or a deputy from the local county Sherriff ‘s office to ‘stipulate the conditions’ that the prisoner would need before release. Only for the relatives to find out that not only is their loved one still in custody, but they’ve been swindled out of thousands of dollars.

“When somebody [the inmate] calls me from jail and I call the relatives, I always warn them that they could get a call from someone claiming that they’re from my office or another bond company or from the jail saying that ‘if you get them on an ankle monitor and they stay out of trouble for six months or more’ or something, it’s probably a scam” Cagle said. The jail will not contact the offenders’ family unless incase of an emergency.

This ongoing issue has also become a personal matter for Cagle. At 3 AM of Apr. 20, a close friend, Mike Lynch, was arrested for a DWI (driving while intoxicated) and possession of a controlled substance before being transferred to Tarrant County. Lynch's sister, Kristy Anderson, said she had her credit card ready. But then decided to put the caller on hold and contacted Cagle at 8:30 PM that same night, stating that her brother was on the verge of being released if she were to pay the bail after she’d received the call at 8:00 PM that same night. Lynch had yet to be arraigned by that time.

“Somebody was saying that they were an officer at the jail and that my brother just qualified for a pre-trial release and that he was going to be issued an ankle monitor” There was no caller ID, according to Anderson, the caller was determined to keep her on the line “They were telling me that if I didn’t pay for it, then he would have to sit there from anywhere from 120 to 180 days for his court date” panic stricken, Anderson said that she had the credit card ready to pay $1,000 - $2500, before calling Cagle, “Shawn said ‘H--- No!’ he said they’re scammers” And so she refused to pay.

The next morning, a different man claiming to be a deputy contacted again for the same stipulations, possibly forgot they called her last night, she said to The Caller “you’re not a deputy you’re a scammer!” Anderson then said that The Callers voice changed “He seemed real professional at first, and then he started talking like ‘Hood’ and was like ‘yeah, yeah we was gonna spend your money at the strip club’ and ‘hey I’ll spend it on you, what’s your name? Oh, I already have your name!’” Anderson then told the caller “Yall should be ashamed of yourselves, preying on families that are worried about their loved ones” before hanging up.

Another would be victim managed to slip out of the scammer’s grasp; Warehouse worker, Fariba Gonzales, mother of 6, already posted bail for a relative charged with causing bodily harm, received a call from a man identifying himself as deputy Taylor of the DENTON COUNTY sheriff's office. Gonzales said that she grew suspicious when he first addressed her by her married name as Gonzales is divorced.

“Before being released, she has to be on an ankle monitor, but $1,000 needs to be paid for her [the relative] to be on an ankle monitor and to be released," she told the caller she had already paid the bond. The Caller, according to Gonzales, then said "You'll get your money back when she does her [anger management] classes" according to Texas Court Classes, refunds are only granted in case of a natural disaster, a technical issue, or if the completed certificate was not accepted by the court or probation officer. Gonzales adds that it sounded like it was being read from a script “‘she was to complete this and that and she has a curfew from 9pm to 6am; she has to not get any other charges’” and just like Anderson, Gonzales refused to pay after reaching out to bail bondsman, Tiffany Ramirez, a longtime friend, even after the caller then said that the family member would not be released until the full $1,000 was paid. Gonzales took Ramirez’s advice that it was a scam. Ramirez, just like Cagle, receive upsetting calls from clients all the time who were targeted.

However, this case was different. On Mar. 3 11:08 PM, US Health Group business associate, Amy Styles, 58, was contacted by a number without a caller's ID, claiming to be a deputy sheriff. “I thought it was the police department, because I had filed a police report maybe the week prior, and then when I had been calling on my neighbor’s dogs. For barking, especially during the snow-ice storm that we had when they were left out for hours.” She said that a detective from the Denton Police Department would contact her via a blocked number. “The man says ‘this is Officer Booker of the Den County Sherrif’s office, is this Amy Styles?’ I’m like, yes” Styles made a note that ‘Booker’ said “officer” and not “deputy” but caught on later in the conversation. “He said ‘you have two citations issued today [Mar. 3] by a judge’ for failure to show up for jury duty.” Styles received no subpoenas in the mail and immediately grew suspicious when the caller only recognized her old address dating back from Jul. 24when claiming that the jury summons was sent out on Jan. 7 and that she signed for it.

But instead of ending the call, Styles decided to prolong the conversation to extract more traceable clues. After arguing back and forth, ‘Booker’ asked that she come down to the station to sign paperwork. Styles told the caller she didn’t have a car and invited them to their home. The Caller then hung up. Styles then called the Sherriff to report the call and was turned away with a less than concerned suggestion to block or not answer the future calls.

Styles informed the Facebook group: The Denton Aroundtowners to warn them about Deputy Taylor and Booker; some users have come forward stating similar cases happened.

An associate of the Cagle family, sales and marketer known as ‘Sergey K.’ said that both Zelle and Cashapp being a preferred method of payment for these scammers. His boss, known only as ‘Matt’ was arrested and before even the arraignment, “as soon as our buddy (Matt) was booked, they start reaching out to their family, like friends, and they pressure these family members into paying some kind of bail” but because the family didn’t have either of the two apps, they called Sergey and he called back the number, that wasn’t even in the same area code, and they were asking for almost a $2000 bond on a 15k bail; Sergey said that he found many red flags with person on the other line. “And then they said something about anger management classes being under $500, that sounded sketchy.” To further safeguard family members, Sergey said that he reached out to warn them.

And unfortunately, there are some that have been tricked out of thousands. According to Emilee Cagle, Shawn Cagle’s sister, also in the bail bondsmen business, it’s happened to numerous of her clients. “It was a $100,000 bond and this man called our office and said ‘Hey, I paid the bondsman $20,000 to get my son out’” her client said that the caller claimed they were from the sheriff's office said the 20k had to paid for the bond and an ankle monitor, “And he sent it, I think he said in Bitcoin and other crazy forms, I think Zelle as well.”

Emilee has talked with several of the officials of the jail and according to her, they get several calls from parents wondering why their son or daughter is not released, and they have to explain to the families that they’ve been swindled. Most people never dealt with bail bondsmen or any type of brush with the law before, and so, their lack of knowledge of the penal system can make them vulnerable targets for scamming predators lurking on the web.

These families may be the ones suffering the most, but they aren’t the only ones, “We’re like the sole provider, so they get our card while they’re in jail, the offenders do, to contact us, so we’re not reaching out” said Lindsey Rayl, owner of Mobile Monitoring, “but there’s no way to tell the families in advance, you’d have to tell the people who are required to wear an ankle monitor and who aren’t, all their family members, which we don’t have contact information for, that they shouldn’t be receiving a call.” Most of Rayl’s clientele are violent and/or sex offenders. Her company was once under investigation; it was believed that her company was the one behind these scams. Initially, she thought it was RMS (Recovery Monitor Solutions), the rival company, trying to tarnish her business, “I’ve gotten more calls from investigators about people that didn’t even need a monitor, than I have on people I’ve had a monitor, report being scammed” Rayl said, “What we need to do is catch the people [the perpetrators] and give them a very hefty punishment to show everybody else that they’re going down” Rayl also comes to the acknowledgement that that would be a very difficult task, “there is no way to prevent this systematically, we just have to bring awareness”

Ramirez is inclined to agree with Rayl, “We can’t reach every single person. We can just tell them to let their family members know and they’re kind of like ‘okay, yeah, whatever.’ but a a lot of times, they don’t realize tbat it is actually something serious” Ramirez adds her understanding of the impact of the families, “They’re already scared,” for their loved ones, “you know, they don’t know what’s going on, they’re looking to us to guide them through this process. Because they’re trying to do everything they can to get their loved one out of jail. So they’re very trusting. They’re vulnerable because they are already.” Ramirez explains from her position “as a bondsman, we don’t typically reach out to someone unless somebody calls us from jail and gives us their family’s phone number and we would call them, which that’s getting a little bit scary now too because the people think we are trying to, as a bondsman, trying to scam them.” Ramirez guesses, “they may have already received two or three calls from scammers.”

The Cagle family is trying to combat this wildfire of an ordeal by raising awareness to the community and especially to family members of the incarcerated. Shawn hands out papers for the jailed individual to read and pass the info to their families; Emilee even hands out her business cards attached with the paper to show legitimacy. But in the end, it is both up to the inmate incarcerated as well to warn their families about these scams and the families who answer these calls.

There currently, is no way to actually prevent or track down and arrest the perpetrators doing these crimes.