Have you ever gotten a text from a random number saying ‘your package cannot be delivered’? Or have you ever been put into a group chat with a bunch of unknown numbers with a single text that reads, “hello”?
If the answer is yes, you should first know you’re not alone, and second, know that those texts often come from very sophisticated scammers.
In 2025, the Lexington Police Department got 149 reports of residents being scammed.
Don’t reply to them and don’t clink on any links they send you, Aleks Ring, a forensic accountant who specializes in crypto-enabled fraud, advised Lexington residents at a seminar on Saturday.
Ring works with Operation Shamrock, an anti-fraud program, to educate people on how to stay safe from falling victim to modern scams. Lexington’s Knights of Columbus chapter brought her to town on Jan. 17 to teach locals how to recognize and avoid scammers.
“We have an ongoing commitment to hosting community programs that educate, protect, and support the Lexington community. And obviously the sophisticated recent scams are increasing, so we feel education is the best defense,” Michael Salerno, grand knight of Lexington’s Knights of Columbus chapter, told the Observer.
The event was held in Heritage Hall on Bedford Street. About 20 people, including a handful of Knights of Columbus members, attended.
For those of you who didn’t attend, here’s what Ring shared:
Scammers get peoples’ information, including phone numbers and email addresses, through data breaches, which happen all the time. A data breach is when a scammer, or sometimes an employee inside a company, leaks customers’ personal information. A few years ago, there was a big data breach with AT&T — Social Security numbers and passcodes for about 7.6 million account holders and 65.4 million former account holders were leaked.
Scammers use that personal information to get in contact with people to initiate scams. Right now, many scammers are drawing people into crypto scams, which are a type of scam that involves deceiving people into sending them money in the form of cryptocurrency. Scammers like crypto because it’s irreversible — once you convert cash to crypto, you cannot convert it back.
The most popular type of crypto scam right now is known as “pig butchering” — scammers create relationships with people to gain their trust and eventually convince the person they’re scamming to give them several lump sums of money over time. The scam got its name from the idea that one should ‘fatten up a pig before bringing it to slaughter,’ Ring explained.
Pig butchering scammers will start relationships with people through social media or dating apps behind profiles of people they’re not. Sometimes scammers will pretend to be celebrities or military personnel by creating fake pictures and videos with Artificial Intelligence.
Scammers reach out to people on those apps by starting a conversation with an innocuous “hi.” In general, people have become more open to meeting others online since the pandemic, so the odds that someone will respond to a scammer are pretty good.
After establishing a connection with a person, the scammer will ask to move the conversation to Telegram or Whatsapp. Those are the most common communication apps scammers will use because you don’t have to input a phone number to communicate on those platforms, so it is difficult to trace users.
The scammer will constantly message a person for several weeks or months, asking how their day is going, taking an interest in their life, and overall being really kind. That part of the scam is crucial for the scammer — they must build a deep personal connection, whether that be a friendship or a romantic relationship.
The scammer will eventually tell the person about their investments and offer to help the person invest, too. With crypto scams, the scammer will ask the person to go to a crypto ATM to send the money they want invested.
“If anyone tells you to go to a crypto ATM, don’t do it,” Ring advised.
After a quick Google search, LexObserver found there are crypto ATMs inside Liberty Wine & Spirits on Woburn Street and at Stop & Shop on Bedford Street. The companies that own those machines operate legally in the US. Much like when you make a transaction on Zelle or Venmo, the Crypto ATMs warn you to only send money to people you know before completing a transaction. There are also laminated warning signs hung by both of those crypto ATMs in Lexington, warning customers about scammers. Because the machines and businesses offer those warnings, their liability ends once you move forward and send money.
Scammers often encourage people to invest in small increments. In the beginning, people will actually get a small return on their investment — that is also crucial for the scammer because that builds a foundation of trust. Once that happens, the scammer will push the person to invest more. But the investor will soon stop seeing returns on their investments and may begin to realize they’re being scammed.
That’s when a person might try to withdraw their money, but the scammer will tell them they have to pay taxes or tariffs to do so.
Twenty-four hours after transferring cash to crypto through a crypto ATM, it is almost impossible for someone to get their money back, Ring said.
“It is super important that, as quickly as possible, report it to us so we can try and help you get your money back,” Joseph Sullivan, a detective with the Lexington Police Department who was at the seminar, told attendees.
LPD will immediately fill out a checklist of information and send it off to Secret Service members who take the case on from there.
Ring told attendees she has met victims who have sent their whole life savings to scammers they thought were going to help them invest. Scammers took over $300 billion from Americans in 2025, the FBI reported. But Ring believes that is “hugely underestimated” because many people don’t report when they’re scammed out of shame and embarrassment.
But people should not feel ashamed of being scammed, Ring said, because it can happen to anyone. She has met people who have Ph.D. degrees, doctors, and even people who have studied crypto and have been scammed.
“The notion that stupid people fall for stupid scams — that’s not true,” Ring said during the seminar.
Modern scams go beyond pig butchering, too. Phishing scams are another popular way people get scammed, Ring explained during the seminar. Phishing scams are when scammers impersonate legitimate organizations such as mail delivery services, hiring managers, or even government agencies, through emails, texts, or phone calls to trick victims into revealing personal information.
People may get random texts or emails reading, ‘you haven’t paid your tolls’ or ‘your package couldn’t be delivered,’ that seem legit. The texts will often include a link a person can follow to ‘pay tolls’ or ‘track a missing package,’ but those links are actually fake and are created by scammers. The scammer’s goal is for the victim to put their personal information into the linked website so they can collect it and pocket the victim’s money.
“There is a scam for everybody,” Ring explained to the Observer. “If you didn’t click on that link when a text message came that your package couldn’t be delivered, there may be a job opportunity and somebody’s going to reach out to you on LinkedIn, there may be a police officer that calls you and tells you there is a warrant out for your arrest, there may be an investment opportunity — they’re coming at us from all angles, but you have to be kind to yourself and realize, ‘okay, this has happened because they’re that good,’ it has nothing to do with your intelligence or experience or age.”
There isn’t much law enforcement can do to catch scammers because most operate outside of the US, Ring said. Many are actually victims of human trafficking who are working for others unwillingly, like the operation the New York Times has been investigating in Myanmar.
If you think you’re being scammed, call LPD at (781) 862-1212. You can also report the crime to the government’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov and through Operation Shamrock.