The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued an alert warning that widespread fraud campaigns are impersonating law enforcement or government officials to trick users into handing over money or sensitive information.
“Scammers primarily contact victims through unsolicited phone calls; however, other methods, including text messages and emails, are also used,” the FBI says. “Scammers often spoof authentic phone numbers, email addresses, employee names, and credentials of well-known government and law enforcement agencies, including IC3. Scammers will use a variety of approaches while impersonating these officials, such as using urgent and aggressive tones, refusing to speak to or leave messages with anyone other than the targeted victim, keeping victims on the phone for the duration of the scam, or urging victims not to tell family, friends, financial institutions, or law enforcement about the call. The scammers demand payment through a variety of methods, including prepaid cards, couriers, bank wires, cryptocurrency, or cash inserted into cryptocurrency kiosks.”
The FBI offers the following advice to help users avoid falling for these attacks:
- “Law enforcement and government authorities will never contact members of the public by telephone or text message to demand any form of payment or to request personal or sensitive information.
- Law enforcement and government officials will never request payment via prepaid cards, cryptocurrency, or courier.
- Never give your personal information to anyone without verifying the person is who they say they are. Ask for credentials and use official, publicly available information to contact the government or law enforcement agency to verify the caller and their credentials; do not use contact information provided by the person contacting you.
- If you are sent any webpage URLs, do not click without reviewing them to ensure they match the official domain of the law enforcement or government agency. Remember, scammers may use URLs closely mirroring official ones, but with slight variations or incorrect domain extensions (.com instead of .gov).”
FBI has the story: https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2026/PSA260917
