She believed she was an FBI ‘asset.’ The scam drained her life’s savings.

The Victim: Part one of seven in the Scammed series.

The caller ID flashed “Rockville Police Department.”

Judith Boivin had been driving, preoccupied that fall afternoon with getting her husband to a doctor’s appointment. She answered, figuring it must be important because it was the second call in two days from the local cops.

A male voice greeted her, then said he’d put her through to the head of the Maryland city’s police force. Another man came on the line and got straight to the point: Her Social Security number had been flagged in a crime, and she needed to clear things up or face charges. Taken aback, she readily agreed to cooperate. Because it’s a federal case, the chief told her, he’d have to transfer her to the FBI agent running the investigation.

She soon was speaking with a third man, who informed her that a drug cartel had used her Social Security number to open several bank accounts. These criminal gangs were responsible for countless deaths, he said, and the relentless flow of illegal drugs in the United States.

“You don’t have a profile that would indicate your guilt in this case,” he said. “Would you be willing to be an asset?”

Of course, she said, “if I can be of some assistance.”

But she hadn’t been talking to anyone with the FBI. Or police.

That call in September 2023 was the first in a series of interlacing lies that would send Judith down a rabbit hole that would cost her most of her life’s savings and sense of security.

“He went through everything about me.”

— Judith Boivin said of the scammer

In twice-daily conversations over the next three months, the impostor FBI agent crafted a meticulously detailed story about her stolen Social Security number’s connection to an illicit fentanyl smuggling ring and the possible capture of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel.

If the FBI was involved, she reasoned, it had to be important. She wanted to help.

There have always been scammers. I’ve been writing about them for years.

Sweepstakes and Nigerian letter scams once dominated fraud prevention workshops. We’ve read about pyramid and Ponzi schemes, tech support and telemarketing swindles. And pig butchering — a type of investment scam in which the target’s stake is steadily “fattened up,” usually in the form of cryptocurrency, before the rhetorical slaughter — is a growing concern. Our electronic devices are inundated by phishing, smishing and vishing attacks, all designed to trick you into giving up personal information. This can take the form of malicious links or, in the case of vishing, the use of artificial intelligence to clone someone’s voice.

Judith came to learn the lies she was fed were part of a government impersonation scam. These typically start with a call, text or email from someone pretending to be with the IRS, Social Security Administration or, in her case, the FBI. Scammers leverage the veneer of government authority to manipulate their targets into handing over their savings. The money often ends up overseas, with criminal syndicates in Southeast Asia, Russia or China, where it’s generally gone for good.

An email to Judith from a scammer impersonating an FBI agent

This December 2023 email to Judith Boivin highlights some of the tactics the scammer used to make his credentials appear authentic.

Though a real FBI agent’s name is used, the email address incorrectly ends with .com. A governmentagency email would have ended with .gov.

A fake case number is provided to demonstrate legal procedure.

The email signature includes the official FBI seal to make the communications appear legitimate.

Friendly salutations

are used to evoke comfort and familiarity with the victim.

This December 2023 email to Judith Boivin highlights some of the tactics the scammer used to make his credentials appear authentic.

Though a real FBI agent’s name is used, the email address incorrectly ends with .com. A government

agency email would have ended with .gov.

Victims are often given a fake case number

to make them believe they are involved in

a legitimate legal

procedure.

Friendly language is used to evoke comfort and familiarity with the victim.

The email signature includes the official FBI seal to make the communications appear authentic.

The number of victims and financial losses are scary, and growing.

But consumer advocates and law enforcement officials believe the actual toll is much higher because most victims never come forward. They remain silent, ashamed of being duped and dreading how others might react.

Such reticence is not misplaced. Even as I marvel at the sophistication of the scam that entrapped Judith, I know what she is up against. The questions that will hang over her.

How could you hand over so much money to a stranger?

Why didn’t you see the red flags?

What were you thinking?

And there it is — the judgment.

Judith has struggled with such thoughts herself. “As I’m speaking, I can see how stupid I was,” she told me after our first meeting last spring.

Wearing red glasses, a blue shirt and black pants, she appeared anxious as we gathered around the glass-top dining table in her condo just outside of Washington, D.C. She was surprisingly circumspect about her situation as we reviewed the stacks of documents chronicling her losses — bank statements, ATM and cashier’s check receipts, fake FBI email correspondence from the scammer, and then the emails from real law enforcement officials after the scam was discovered.

Judith speaks regretfully, at points berating herself for being trapped for months in a scheme specifically designed just for her.

She wasn’t stupid.

She was trusting.

Nor was she a willing participant; she was the victim of a ruthless crime. Until we understand that, other victims won’t come forward or get the help they need to recover. And if they don’t notify the police, it only feeds the fraud ecosystem.

This lovely, petite, soft-spoken retired therapist was concerned about being tied to illegal activity and protecting her savings. Mostly, she believed that by clearing her name she also would be “doing something for the common good.” She would be helping catch the criminals.

She and the millions of Americans who get scammed every year deserve our empathy. They are just as much victims as anyone robbed on a city street.

Over multiple interviews, Judith opened up about what happened to her, unspooling the scheme’s many steps in hopes she might spare others her torment.

After deconstructing how the scammer twisted her into submission, it wasn’t hard to see what she saw or feel what she felt.

Her coming forward is an act of bravery.

Judith’s criminal handler introduced himself as FBI special agent Wayne A. Jacobs. When she looked up the name online, she learned that a Wayne A. Jacobs ran the criminal and cyber division of the bureau’s Washington Field Office.

The handler gave her a criminal case number for reference — CP920-416 — and called from numbers manipulated to appear as if they originated from an FBI office.

“I checked out the phone numbers and the names,” she said. “All the phone numbers panned out.”

He swore Judith to secrecy, adamant that no one, not even her husband, was to know about her involvement because it might jeopardize the investigation. Whenever they spoke, she said, “the first thing he asked is if I was alone.”

The scammer called her twice a day — 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. — from mid-September 2023 through mid-December. They would talk about developments in the case and steps to ensure her safety.

They came up with a code word so she would know when calls were coming from his office. He asked what her favorite color was.

It’s beige.

“He said, so when anyone calls, I want you to ask them to verify that they are real and that they’re calling from this office,” Judith said.

It wasn’t long before he brought up the need to protect her assets; the cartel had enough of her personal information that her bank accounts weren’t safe. Could Judith fill out a financial disclosure form? The bureau needed to know exactly how much money she had and where it was held to keep it safe.

She was too vulnerable, he told her; she needed to move her retirement savings out of Morgan Stanley — in cash — and into a government “safety locker.”

In a follow-up email, she was assigned locker number SFTY-LCKR 196-00-706. The documentation had a seal from the U.S. Department of State.

It read, in part: “The Federal Safety Locker under the attorney’s panel is authorized to safeguard the victim’s financial assets in the form of Federal Transfers (Government Verified Bonds, Cash Bills, Bank Transfers and International Bank Wire Transfers, etc.) and be moved back into the new bank or same bank accounts and investments as per the victim’s new financials, under the current Social Security number.”

She would get her money back after the trial, she was assured.

But, her handler cautioned, she was not to tell anyone at the Morgan Stanley office in Green Bay, Wisconsin — which had managed her investments for three decades — the real reason she wanted to transfer all her retirement funds to several banks in Maryland.

“He explained that the goal would be to liquidate all the funds and get the cash to other banks where I could open checking accounts,” Judith said. “Because of the amount of my holdings, I needed to use different banks so the money could be accessed freely. He said I’d need to fill out a declaration of finances form that he would send me.

“I asked several times if we could meet, and he said it would probably not be until we had a court date.”

With her assistance, he emphasized, the FBI could make arrests, prevent money from being laundered using her personal information and break up a massive drug operation.

This resonated with Judith, someone whose life’s work centered on helping people.

She has been a registered nurse and licensed clinical social worker. She has worked as a psychotherapist, facilitated trauma counseling for victims of natural disasters and domestic abuse, and volunteered at a hospice. She’s worked in Belize, establishing an outreach center for HIV-positive children. Since closing her therapy practice in 2004, she’s also worked as a companion for dementia patients.

In 2010, she self-published a memoir, “Gift of the Japanese Red Maple,” as she was trying to heal from the suicide of her son. Paul, her youngest, was 22.

Born into a Catholic family before the end of World War II, “the middle child of six, I was raised in a secure and safe home,” she wrote.

Her upbringing taught her to trust authority figures.

Experts say the scammer would have counted on this. And it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to amass a detailed profile of her from information readily available on social media and career websites. There’s also a glut of personal and financial information floating in the dark web thanks to rounds of data breaches at, among others, American Express, AT&T, Facebook, Equifax and Marriott. Even federal agencies, including the State and Commerce departments, have not been immune to hackers.

“He went through everything about me,” Judith said.

He knew about her career path and what drove her. Anything the scammer didn’t know already, he learned from their daily conversations.

This knowledge made him credible.

It’s how he stole her savings — $595,000 in cash.

Part 2 | The Criminal

Enter the ‘ether,’ where scammers weaponize your emotions

Read next part in series