Heartbreaking video footage shows the moment an elderly woman is tricked into depositing thousands of dollars into a Bitcoin ATM just before police come to her rescue.
The victim insisted she was calling Chase Bank when she was confronted by officers responding to a 911 call from a concerned bystander.
But it was actually heartless scammers on the other end of the line who had already convinced her to deposit $23,900 of her own money into the machine.
Bodycam footage of Sergeant James Stewart shows him entering the Chevron gas station in suburban Fort Worth, Texas and approaching the woman.
As she sees the officer, she is filmed saying, “Please, I have the bank on the phone.” I’m in danger and this is Chase Bank.”
Police body camera footage shows the elderly woman depositing cash into a Bitcoin ATM at a Chevron gas station convenience store
“No, it’s not, ma’am,” Stewart said as he grabbed her phone to talk to the fraudster.
Stewart is then heard berating the scammers and telling him, “If you were in my presence right now, you would be going to jail in handcuffs.”
A statement from local police said she withdrew $40,000 in cash from a Chase Bank branch. She was then instructed by criminals to deposit the money into the Bitcoin ATM at the gas station.
Bitcoin ATMs are not fraudulent in themselves; they are simply a tool to convert cash into bitcoin.
If you already have a cryptocurrency wallet, the cash you deposit into the ATM will be sent there after you scan your personal QR code or enter your wallet address – a long string of numbers and letters.
But criminals often prey on elderly people or people who have no knowledge of crypto and tell them to send their money to a specific wallet address or QR code that they provide.
And if it weren’t for the good Samaritan, 38-year-old bystander Myndi Jordan, the elderly woman would have lost every cent.
Jordan – who has been a victim of identity theft herself – became alarmed when she saw the woman repeatedly inserting $100 bills into the machine at someone’s urging over the phone.
“I saw an elderly lady put thousands of dollars into the cryptocurrency machine and the people on the phone sounded like foreigners,” she told the 911 operator.
“They’re FaceTiming her to make sure she puts the money in the machine. I just don’t think she’s aware of what she’s doing.”
Shortly after her call, Stewart and another officer from the White Settlement Police Department arrived on the scene.
Stewart’s body camera captured him approaching the victim and his confrontation with the alleged scammer.
“Don’t put any money in it,” he told her as he grabbed her phone.
When Stewart asks who is on the other line, a male voice responds that he is part of Chase Bank’s “security team.”
“No, it’s not,” Stewart fires back. “If you’re really part of the security team, you can call my control room right now.”
The person then asks to be put back on the phone with the woman he cheated on, a request that Stewart did not comply with for a second.
At one point, the suspect tries to convince the woman to take her phone back, because the police “don’t have to get involved.” He then tries to get his victim to keep pressing the buttons on the machine.
‘Listen to me. She’s not clicking on anything…what you’re doing is committing a crime,” Stewart said, still holding the phone and speaking to the scammer.
The scammer repeatedly calls the woman “Christine,” which ultimately enrages Stewart because that is not her name.
When he is called out for getting her name wrong, the criminal starts calling her “Kathleen.”
Myndi Jordan, pictured, called police about the situation and is seen here telling Sergeant James Stewart that the elderly woman had deposited more than $23,000
According to White Settlement police, the perpetrator arranged a ride to take the elderly woman to the bank to withdraw the $40,000, and another to take her to the Bitcoin ATM.
The suspect allegedly chased the woman a few days earlier and even gave her a cover story to tell the bank why she withdrew so much money at once. NBC reported.
She believed the person she was speaking to was from Chase Bank, thanks to a common trick that allows criminals to impersonate an organization’s number.
“Fraudsters can also spoof a telephone number, as happened in this crime, where the victim saw ‘CHASE BANK’ on the caller ID,” police said in a statement.
All major banks will never tell a customer to withdraw money over the phone.
Police said the woman was also told she would be arrested if she did not withdraw the $40,000. This is a common trick used by scammers to get people to make quick, irrational decisions.
Officers arrive outside the store where the elderly woman was brutally scammed over the phone by an unknown person
Bitcoin ATM scams have become so widespread that the Federal Trade Commission had to issue a ban an advice for consumers in March.
When the woman realized she had been saved from depositing all her money, she hugged both officers at the scene.
“All I could do in this case is visualize my mother,” Stewart said of the case. “I wish we could find this man and put him behind bars for a really long time because he’s probably doing this to other people.”
White Settlement Police are working to recover the woman’s lost money with the help of a Bitcoin law enforcement contact and the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
Jordan will be honored for what she has done at the next White Settlement City Council meeting.