MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) — Gabriel Arrington says he spent three hours believing he was minutes from being arrested on federal warrants. He wasn’t. He was on the phone with a scammer.
In a Facebook video that’s since spread across the Treasure Coast, Arrington describes getting a voicemail from someone claiming to be with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. When he called back, the man on the line told him he had two federal warrants tied to a missed jury summons in a murder case and needed to come in immediately to clear it up.
Arrington says the caller kept him on the phone for the entire drive from Central Florida to Martin County, warning him that hanging up would look like he was fleeing. He says the man read back his own personal information without being asked, sent him fake court documents including a warrant and what he was told was a gag order, and told him he’d need to withdraw $32,000 in cash from his bank to post bond once he arrived.
“If I hang up the phone, you’re going to think I’m running,” Arrington said. “I can’t call my parents or my attorney. It was horrifying.”
“This was the most well laid out scam I’ve ever seen,” Arrington said in the video. “He didn’t ask me to send the money. He didn’t ask me to click on any links. He didn’t ask me to do anything other than go to the police station.”
Arrington says he only caught on after his fiancée grew suspicious and he noticed a fourth document had been slipped in among the three he’d been told to expect. He hung up and called Martin County dispatch, where he says a 911 operator told him there was no warrant and that the office had already fielded roughly a dozen similar calls that same day.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office says Arrington’s experience fits a scam that’s targeted residents for years and shows no signs of slowing down. In an interview with CBS12, Sheriff John Budensiek said scammers spoof the office’s real phone number, use real employees’ names pulled from the internet, and lean on the fear of arrest to pressure victims into paying what’s framed as a bond before they can be taken into custody.
“First and foremost, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office or any law enforcement agency is not going to call you and tell you that you have a warrant for your arrest,” Budensiek said.
“If we’re looking for you, we’re going to come find you,” Budensiek said.
Budensiek said the scam has been running for close to a decade and isn’t limited to Martin County. He said his office has struggled to track down the people behind it because the calls route through untraceable internet-based phone numbers. In one case, he said, deputies kept a scammer on the line and found he could answer detailed questions about real employees, judges and case numbers, which he said shows how convincing the calls have become.
The Sheriff’s Office says the impact goes beyond any single case. MCSO confirms Martin County residents have lost at least $6 million to scams of all kinds over the past two years.
Budensiek’s advice: if a caller says you have a warrant, hang up. Then call the Sheriff’s Office back using a number you look up yourself, not one the caller gives you, to confirm whether it’s real. Arrington says he wants his story to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks they’d never fall for it.
“You can laugh at me in the comments all you want,” Arrington said, “but until you’re in my shoes, you will then see how bad it is.”
Anyone who receives a suspicious call claiming to be from the Sheriff’s Office is asked to hang up and contact MCSO directly to verify it before taking any action or sending any money.