LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) – The Lafayette Police Department is warning about police impersonation scam calls. Sgt. Robin Green said since January 1st till now; the past six weeks, the Lafayette Police Department has been experiencing a large influx of scam calls about people calling and impersonating law enforcement officers, whether it be the Lafayette Police Department or Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office or any of the surrounding agencies. 

“We want people to know that as law enforcement officers, we would never call anybody and demand money for missing court dates or missing jury duty or just anything in reference to anything dealing with the court system,” she explained. “Officers will not call and demand money and so because we are noticing such an influx of the calls and people are losing money, we felt that we need to get the information out there that if people do receive these calls from scammers, hang up immediately and call that agency or whatever business or financial institution that they claim to be from and verify the information before they even go to their bank or try to send money to these individuals.”

She said through investigation one person lost $10,000 by falling victim to the scam, “That’s a substantial amount of money. I mean, just any money that, you know, people work hard for, we want to make sure that people are not falling victim to these scams, because a lot of the reports that we’ve been taking, it’s after the fact. They’ve wire this money to these people and now that’s money they can’t get back,” she said. 

Pay attention to where the scammers are sending you. If it is places that are just unusual, like kiosks in a convenience store or going to Wal-Mart and wiring money through an account. Then it is a red flag.  “It is not the normal way to pay for fines for missed court dates or jury duty or whatever. So pay attention to that,” she said. “If  they’re sending you to a local convenience store to go pay a fine at a kiosk, in that convenience store. No, that’s going to be a scam and especially unconventional ways to pay the fines like Apple Pay cards or iTunes cards or Walmart gift cards. You never pay any type of fines with the court system by using those types of payments, even cryptocurrency. So pay attention. If the payment that they’re asking for is unusual, nine times out of ten is going to be a scam.”

Law enforcement are working to solve scam cases but it is a lengthy process. For instance, Sgt. Green said they have one case stemming from 2024 in October where police were able to link a woman out of Marrero, Louisiana named Brittany Moore.  “We actually have a warrant out for her arrest for one count of extortion. She was not the only person that was involved. There are two others from Georgia and so the investigation is still ongoing,” said Sgt. Green. “So many times people think it’s just people from out of the country. But no, it’s people from just within the United States that are doing these scams and so we are looking into them. But like I say, it is a lengthy process because it’s a lot of search warrants, a lot of subpoenas trying to get records for these types of investigations. But we want people to be aware.” 

If you or someone you know has fallen victim to a possible scam contact your local law enforcement. More information on how to avoid scams can be found here.