Pop-up warning tricks elderly Georgia couple into sending crypto

OCONEE COUNTY, Ga. — Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced that state and local law enforcement agencies have seized and returned stolen cryptocurrency to elderly fraud victims in east Georgia.

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The recovery followed a joint investigation conducted by the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Attorney General’s White Collar and Cyber Crime Unit. The victims were targeted in a scheme involving a deceptive computer pop-up alert and an impersonation of federal officials.

The scheme began when a pop-up alert appeared on the couple’s computer claiming that their bank account had been breached. A perpetrator impersonating an official from the Federal Trade Commission directed the couple to withdraw money from their bank and deposit the cash into a cryptocurrency kiosk. The fraudster stayed on the phone with the victims while they were at the bank, giving them instructions on how to avoid drawing attention from bank tellers or anyone assisting them at the kiosk.

Once deposited into the kiosk, the cryptocurrency moved rapidly through multiple digital wallets before arriving at an account on a cryptocurrency exchange. Law enforcement officials traced the transactions to the exchange and seized the digital assets, after which a court ordered the funds returned to the victims.