SCOTT COUNTY, Ky. (LEX NEWS) — Investigators with the Georgetown Police Department claim they receive field fraud reports from citizens daily.
“It comes as everything from small-time scams, like someone texting you, ‘Hey, we have this new hot job for you, just apply here.’ There’s a $50 fee kind of thing, and they’re trying to snatch that fee from you, all the way to large investment fraud,” said Lt. Mitchell Lair, the head of criminal investigations at the Georgetown Police Department.
Lair said his team of eight stays busy and a majority of their man hours come from the digital nature of the crime.
“It’s multiple search warrants. Once you unlock a new record of information, that’s more search warrants,” said Lair. “It’s a never-ending hole, and it keeps [unfolding] like an onion really.”
He told LEX News that the sky is the limit on how much time and effort goes into a case. Lair also…
These frauds exploit emotional vulnerability and trust rather than technical weaknesses.
- Romance Scams: Scammers build long-term online relationships with victims, eventually fabricating a “crisis” (medical emergency, legal trouble, or travel costs) that requires the victim to send money.
- Pig Butchering: A hybrid scam where the criminal builds a romantic or platonic relationship to eventually “tutor” the victim in a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment.