Reports: Scammers impersonating immigration officers target local residents

Scammers impersonating immigration officers are targeting local residents with phone calls threatening deportation and demanding money, according to local attorneys and immigrant advocates.

During the past month and half, at least five people — from Riverhead to Aquebogue, Calverton and Greenport — have been scammed by someone claiming to be a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services officer.

P., a Riverhead resident — whose wife and baby were being held at a detention center in Texas and were waiting to be released — received a phone call last month from someone who knew his wife’s name, saying they needed $3,300 as soon as possible to buy the plane tickets for his family to be transported to New York.

Being undocumented and with limited English, P. didn’t question the person calling, especially since they knew all his family’s information.

Anxious to see his family again, P. deposited the money at a Wells Fargo branch in Ronkonkoma and when the days passed and he received no information from the people who had called him, he began to worry.

He went to see North Fork Spanish Apostolate director Sister Margaret Smyth, an immigrant advocate, who quickly suspected the worst.

“I knew this was a scam,” she said. “Someone who is undocumented, and in this case indigenous and with a low educational level, they are vulnerable and many times fall prey to scammers.”

Smyth called the immigration detention center in Texas directly, who told her that 110 people had been taken to the airport that morning, but that it was so crowded that they weren’t keeping any records of where people were going to go next and there wasn’t a way to locate them. Furthermore, they hadn’t contacted anyone.

“P. cried his eyes out that day, he was desperate thinking his wife and son had been lost in the process, with no money and no way of communicating,” Smyth said.

Then, after a couple days, P.’s phone rang again. A shelter run by nuns in Texas where sometimes immigrants are taken to (and only a few hours away from the immigration detention center) called saying his wife and baby were there.

“His relief was immense,” Smyth said. “We bought two airplane tickets to New York that same day for about $600 and they are now finally reunited and living here.”

However, P.’s case is not isolated.

At least two other men in the Riverhead area have also been scammed, according to local immigration attorney Michael Nappo from the Law Office of David M. Sperling.

Nappo said that in the case of both of his clients, someone impersonating an immigration officer threatened them and told them that they would start immigration proceedings against them immediately unless they wired money to an undisclosed recipient in Peru.

In one case, one of Nappo’s clients wired $900. In the other case, the person wired $1,600 in two payments of $800.

At least one of Nappo’s client reported the scam to Riverhead Police Department, he said.

Riverhead Police Chief David Hegermiller did not return a call seeking comment.

“When something like this happens, people are embarrassed and afraid of being victimized in this way and many times don’t report it or come forward, especially if they are undocumented,” Nappo said.

“Even if someone has an immigration case pending, you will never be getting a phone call from an immigration officer,” he said.

Town of Southold Chief of Police Martin Flatley agrees.

“A federal agency will never use the phone to communicate with you,” he said. “It’s kind of a good golden rule, in any kind of scenario where someone is calling claiming to be from immigration or other agency, it’s most likely a scam.”

In Greenport, another man filed a police report saying someone claiming to be an immigration officer had texted him.

He later received a phone call from someone threatening to deport him unless he wired around $2,900. The man later reported the incident to the police who told him it was a scam.

“Unfortunately —whether it’s the elderly, or immigration, or the IRS‚— we get scam cases like these all the time,” Flatley said. “It’s very important people report what’s going on so we can warn others.”

Nappo, who regularly does immigration forums at BOCES and the Riverhead Free Library, said that “filing the police report is crucial” — it could sometimes even help with their immigration cases.

However, Smyth and Nappo say that the current climate is making a lot of people afraid of going to the police, even when that could help their cases, because they fear local police are working with ICE and they often choose not to proceed that way.

Flatley said that may be one of the reasons people are afraid to report, but he also said that some immigrants may not trust the police because in their countries of origin they couldn’t.

“It may be cultural, or fear, but it’s really important we know about these situations,” he said.

“Please, please talk to someone before doing anything, whether is someone from church, a lawyer, someone who can guide you,” said Smyth. “It’s the only way to make sure that whoever is calling you is honest and legitimate.”