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It all started when a phone scammer called an elderly Chicago woman in May and told her that she committed a series of crimes. According to FOXNEWS, the scammer told 74-year-old Henriette Schmuhl that she would have to convert her entire life savings to bitcoin and change her social security number if she wanted to clear her name.
Schmuhl lost a total of $230,000 to the scammer. The scammer identified himself as Andrew Hall, an employee of the U.S Department of Homeland Security. He told Schmuhl that she would be charged for drug trafficking and money laundering if she did not do exactly what he said.
The scammer told her that if she notified the police she would be arrested, and that he was just trying to "help" her. He was also able to convince Schmuhl that she needed a new social security number because her identity was at stake. The money that she was told to withdraw from her account was for her "protection." She was told to purchase a series of gift cards and put $17,000 on each. That money was then converted into digital currency by bitcoin machines over the last few months.
Schmuhl never told her family that she received these calls. After convincing her to funnel all of her money out of her accounts, the scammer never called again.