A con artist impersonating FBI agent Wayne A. Jacobs scammed Judith out of nearly $600,000, part of a multistate scheme costing 13 victims $2.9 million.
The real Jacobs, unaware of the fraud, called the impact “devastating.”
Judith Boivin didn’t accept that she had been conned until a Maryland state fraud investigator pointed out the scammer’s email: [email protected].
“How would I have ever known that?” Judith asked.
Exactly.
Scammers count on victims not being able to discern what’s authentic and what’s not. We know from major corporate and government data breaches that even workers who regularly receive cybersecurity training fall victim to fake emails.
After that first phone call with a man professing to be special agent Wayne A. Jacobs, Judith searched for him online. She was reassured after finding his name on the bureau’s website.
But she hadn’t been talking to the bona fide Jacobs; he’d never heard of Judith until I contacted an FBI spokesperson. I later told Jacobs how a con man had co-opted his resume as part of a multistate impersonation scam.
By the time the impersonator was done with Judith, she was out nearly $600,000. Add in the 12 other known victims, and losses spike to $2.9 million.
“You feel terrible because the real impact here is to the victim, the folks who are separated from their money,” Jacobs said. “In this case … quite a bit of money.”
A scammer impersonated a real FBI agent. It cost 13 victims $2.9 million.© Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post
The scheme was effective because there were large breadcrumbs of truth. On November 2023, two months after scammers first contacted Judith
At different phases of the three-month con, scammers name-dropped other legitimate members of law enforcement. Judith was tricked into believing she was on the phone with members of the Rockville police force, including then-chief, Victor V. Brito.
“This is disturbing,” said Jason West, interim police chief for the Rockville City Police Department in Maryland. Brito had not heard about the use of his name in the scam until I reached out for comment. “I can assure you that no member of the executive command staff of the Rockville City Police Department would ever make a direct call like that and refer someone to a government agency,” West said. “That just would not happen.”
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