A professor thought he was sending money to help federal officials catch human traffickers. It was a scam

When the retired professor answered his phone one morning in late July, he said an official-sounding man announced he was an agent with the Social Security Administration and was calling to tell the man he had been ensnared in an international ring.

Traffickers from Mexico had gotten the 81-year-old's name and Social Security number and were using the information to help smuggle drugs and people across the border into El Paso, the caller claimed.

The story seemed hard to believe, but whatever doubts the professor said he harbored melted away as the purported agent unspooled detail after detail of the man's life. He knew his Social Security number. He listed properties the man had purchased 20 years ago and knew the banks he used.

When the hook on the scam came, the professor was worried enough to act: The scammer told him he needed to purchase thousands of dollars worth of gift cards and withdraw tens of thousands from the bank. The money, which he was instructed to send to Virginia, would allegedly be used as a lure to help catch the traffickers. He was told the money would be returned.

The professor had already dropped a box full of cash at a San Francisco FedEx by the time his partner heard about what was happening and sounded the alarm. What followed was a cross-country scramble to get the box before the scammers did in Fairfax County, Va.

"I was ashamed, quite frankly," the man said. "How could I be conned like that?"

Government impersonation scams are an exploding category of crime with losses increasing tenfold from $12.5 million in 2017 to $124 million in 2019, according to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. The FBI, U.S. Marshals, IRS and police departments nationwide have reported issues in recent years, but the Social Security Administration (SSA) has been one of the hardest hit.

SSA Commissioner Andrew Saul testified before the Senate in January that the number of complaints it had received about scam calls had jumped from about 5,000 in 2018 to more than 60,000 in 2019.

The scams take a variety of forms. Scammers sometimes claim they are from the IRS and the victim owes back taxes. They might say they are from a local sheriff's office and the victim risks jail if they don't pay up for supposedly missing jury duty. Some say they are police officers who will take payment of a fee in lieu of an arrest on an outstanding warrant.

The operations can be vast in scale. A federal indictment unsealed in Atlanta last month alleges an Indian company pushed out tens of millions of roboscam calls to people in the United States, claiming their social security numbers had been used in crimes and other ruses. Federal agents shut down 60 servers making the calls as part of the case, but not before the perpetrators got $20 million from victims.

"The thing with these scams is that they are constantly evolving," said Fairfax County police 2nd Lt. James Curry. "What remains the same is that threat and that vulnerability that they always prey on."

The professor said he was threatened with arrest by the phony SSA agent if he didn't send money. The Washington Post is not naming the man because he and his partner are fearful they could be targeted again and could serve as witnesses.

After agreeing to make the transfer, the professor said the scammer directed him to two Safeways and a Walgreens near his San Francisco home. The professor purchased $4,000 in gift cards while the scammer remained on the phone with him.

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Immediately after he left the stores, the professor said, the scammer asked that he turn over the numbers for the gift cards, which were then drained of funds.

But it wasn't over yet.

The scammer directed the professor to two banks where the man made withdrawals of $10,000 each. The scammer told the professor to ship the money to an address in Fairfax County, which the professor thought was associated with the SSA, but was actually a FedEx drop spot at a Safeway. A little over an hour elapsed from when the professor received the initial call to when he shipped the box.

That evening the professor told his partner what had happened.

"I freaked," the partner said.

The couple called the San Francisco police, who referred them to Fairfax County authorities. Curry said officers put a hold on the package and went to the FedEx drop spot to collect it before the scammers did. There was a wrinkle: When police opened the package they believed belonged to the professor, the amount of cash inside did not match what the professor reported.

Curry said officers quickly realized they had discovered the package of a second victim of the scam. An older woman in Boston had sent a package addressed to the same man as the professor. It also contained thousands in cash.

Officers then found the professor's package and seized it. The money was returned, but the investigation into the scam remains ongoing and no arrests have been made. Curry said perpetrators often take steps to distance themselves from the scam.

"These investigations are very layered," Curry said. "There are usually couriers involved. We are still looking into who was supposed to receive the money."

Curry said there are a couple of ways to spot a scam. Most government agencies won't conduct business by telephone. Scammers also often ask for payments via gift cards or bitcoin, something a government agency would never do.

Curry said if someone is unsure about whether a call is authentic, it's easy to hang up and call the main number listed for the agency's customer service department.

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