Sonoma County Sheriffs Department Warning About a Telephone Extortion Scam

telephone-scammer
telephone-scammer

 

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department is warning about a telephone extortion scam that almost swindled a Cazadero man out of ten-thousand-dollars. It involves a caller claiming to have kidnapped a relative with the sound of a woman screaming in the background. It happened earlier this month to 66-year-old Kerch Thomas, who answered a cell phone call that started with a woman saying “Daddy, I’m in trouble” and then a man saying he was from a Guatemalan criminal gang and his daughter would be killed if he didn’t pay ten-thousand-dollars ransom. Thomas withdrew the money, but he happened upon a sheriff’s deputy on his way to the drop location. The deputy quickly determined Thomas’ adult daughter living in Oregon was just fine.