An area law-enforcement agency is alerting the public about a scam.
According to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department, the Missouri Sex Offender Registry has been receiving information from offenders and some county registries about a phone scam targeting registered sex offenders in Missouri.
Further research has discovered this is not limited to Missouri. The scam started in other states as early as February of 2019 as a way to extort money from offenders.
Authorities say when the registered sex offender is contacted, the caller claims to be a sex-offender compliance officer; and in some cases, the scammer uses a specific officer’s name associated with a law-enforcement agency.
The scammer then informs the registered sex offender they are non-compliant because they failed to submit a “second” sample of DNA and will be arrested on a warrant.
They go on to explain that the warrant will be recalled if they pay a certain fee.