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Registrants in Florida and across the country have been receiving telephone calls from individuals impersonating law enforcement officers in an attempt to extort money from them.
People are being told that they are not in compliance with their registration and a warrant has been issued for their arrest and if they pay a "bond" that their arrest can be avoided.
Recipients of these calls have been threatened that if they "hang up the phone or any failure to follow the caller’s instructions that it will result in the swat team being dispatched to the registrant’s home immediately".
The person is told to purchase a prepaid debit card or similar item and either provide the caller with the card information over the phone or meet the caller at a prearranged location.
Law enforcement has done very little to pursue the scammers and are not warning registrants about the existence of these scams.
These types of scams have been used to target people on the registry for a number of years but law enforcement on the Federal, State, and Local levels have seemingly been unwilling to launch an investigation or respond in any way to this crime.
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Update: January 18, 2023
A Beaumont, Texas Police Department spokesperson has recently reported in a press release that there have been multiple incidents in their distract of this scam and it is suspected that this is due to the large amount of information about registrants that states like Texas make public on their registry websites.
Scammers have been able to spoof the Beaumont Police Department phone number and have been telling people that they have a " bond to pay or that they're about to be arrested". Police are urging registrants to verify with their local police, parole or probation officer before just going off and sending money.
Beaumont Police did not indicate if they have opened an investigation or plan to pursue this matter further.
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Boys 
by Staff Writer - September 2, 2022
