NYPD officers were in Central Park on Tuesday, cautioning New Yorkers about scammers preying on generous visitors.
“We’re asking them to not give their phone to anybody that they do not know,” stated NYPD Officer Anthony Hale.
Since May 19, the NYPD has received at least six reports of women being approached by a group of young men, mostly in Sheep Meadow. The men claimed they were collecting donations for their sports team via Zelle, a money transfer app. They convinced the women to hand over their phones under the pretense of entering the email address associated with their account.
“Once they get their phones, they quickly transfer themselves large sums of money,” said Capt. Anthony Iavino, commanding officer of the Central Park precinct.
Two victims managed to cancel the transactions in time, but the other four lost a total of nearly $7,000. One victim, former Miss New York Briana Siaca, lost $2,000.
To prevent further incidents, the NYPD is urging people to take small but critical precautions.
“We’re asking them to set up two-step verification on all of their applications, specifically their financial applications,” said Hale. “And we’re also asking them to set up transaction limits to prompt them before a transaction goes through.”
Police released pictures of possible suspects connected with the latest incident and believe the same individuals may be responsible for all the reported crimes.
“We’ve adjusted our deployment to the areas where we’re seeing increases in this to make sure we have officers at the time and locations where these incidents are happening,” Iavino said.