Nolensville Police host FBI for fraud, scam prevention seminar

The Nolensville Police Department hosted the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week for a fraud and scam seminar to help the community identify potential threats and prevent themselves from becoming a victim.

The event drew about two dozen people to town hall on the evening of Dec. 8, and featured presentations by FBI Special Agent Stephen Fogarty and Agent Dean Kinsman, both of whom are from the FBI’s Nashville Field Office, while Kinsman is also a Nolensville resident.

The agents discussed some of the common types of scams and frauds, including who perpetrated them and how to prevent them, with Agent Fogarty saying that “fraud is off the charts.”

Fogarty specifically touched on the Felony Lane Gang, a Florida-based organized theft effort that targets automobiles in smash-and-grab style thefts that lead to credit card and check fraud, which has been seen in Williamson County.

“Every week, every month, they are coming through here and we can’t catch them fast enough,” Fogarty said, adding that “no one is exempt” from becoming a victim.

The presentation also warned residents about other threats such as the South American Theft Groups, which is known by law enforcement to be involved in thefts from fitness centers, auto burglaries, high end residential burglaries and jewelry store burglaries and “Operation Homeless,” which they said is based out of Atlanta and sees thieves manipulate people who are experiencing homelessness into cashing stolen or counterfeit checks to fuel criminal organizations.

Agent Fogarty said that a lot of organized crime is not based in Middle Tennessee, but that the state and the region is a conduit for criminal groups originating from major cities across the nation, especially as many groups are looking for easy opportunities to make money, such as breaking into vehicles.

“It is a crime of opportunity,” Agent Fogarty said. “Take away the opportunity.”

Relatively simple threats such as card skimmers or hidden cameras on ATMs and other credit card readers remain present across the nation, as well as mail theft and scammers impersonating trusted organizations or officials.

Much of this remote fraud happens with scammers who cold-call potential victims either through a telephone call, email or text message or social media message with threats of extortion, while other scammers form fake relationships with victims to take money from them over a longer period of time, some of which are known as “money mule scams,” which can result in the victim unknowingly taking part in crimes.

Earlier this year, an elderly Nolensville woman became the victim of a scam that allegedly saw two Miami men defraud her of $26,000 before they were arrested.

In 2019, the Nolensville Police Department arrested a Romanian man in connection with credit card duplications, and that man was later one of 18 people who was charged by the Department of Justice’s United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York as part of a crackdown on an international fraud operation.

Agent Kinsman detailed the growing area of cyber-crimes, touching on the darkweb, malware and ransomware and the theft of passwords and other sensitive data used by both individuals and businesses. 

Kinsman said that residents can do simple things such as making sure that they use strong passwords on their digital devices and accounts, backing up critical files, never clicking on suspicious links or downloading suspicious links and keeping software up-to-date.

Kinsman said that anyone who may have become a victim of online-fraud or any type of cyber crime should report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

“The problem is that there is so much cyber-crime right now,” Kinsman said. “We probably have 5-10 victims a day that are reported to us in the US and they are usually in the $3-4 million range, each one of these victims or businesses, and these are just the ones that are being reported to us. There are way more out there that we never find out about.”

NPD Chief Parker said that these personal and professional relationships between him, his agency, and representatives of larger agencies such as the FBI are key in having the resources to both investigate more in-depth crimes as well as giving the community the information and tools to help prevent crime in the first place.

“Frauds and scams are one of the bigger things that we deal with on a consistent basis as far as [criminals] victimizing our citizenry and costing them lots of money, and most of the time it’s hard to get that back,” Parker said. “So if we can do anything prevention-wise, like these classes and getting this information out, we’re just trying to be preventative.”

Parker said that NPD is interested in continuing to host similar events and programming in the future and they encourage residents to keep up with their Facebook page for announcements for future events and news.