A 25-year-old man from New York was arrested last month on charges in connection with scamming a Massachusetts man out of $100,000 with a fake email, according to the Barnstable Police Department.
Khaseem Allah, 25, of Albany, New York, was found to be involved in the online scam and charged after an investigation opened with the police department in collaboration with a branch of the U.S. Secret Service in November 2023.
The Osterville, Massachusetts, man had been conducting a “business email compromise” with a company, and was instructed by the email to redirect a $100,000 payment to an unauthorized account, the department said.
The company then contacted the Osterville man and notified him of fraud, the department said. During the investigation into the incident, a Barnstable detective traced the transaction to a bank in New York and to Allah.
Allah was indicted by the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was taken into custody in Troy, New York, with assistance from Massachusetts State Police and the U.S. Marshals Service. He waived extradition and was brought to the Barnstable Police Department.
The 25-year-old was charged with larceny over $1,200 in Barnstable District Court on Thursday, and was held on $50,000 bail with order to wear GPS monitoring if bail is posted.
The Barnstable Police Department shared the following safety tips from the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), to help residents avoid falling victim to email phishing scams:
- If you are asked to change deposit or payment information, confirm with the company via telephone.
- Never respond to suspicious emails.
- Don’t open emails from people you don’t know or don’t expect an email from. Pay close attention to the subject line, email address and grammar as these are often preliminary ways to tell that an email is a scam.
- If an email, email attachment or link seems suspicious, do not open it, even if antivirus software indicates that it is safe.
- Install spam filters.
- Install antivirus software and a personal firewall and keep it up to date.
To help people protect themselves from similar scams, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offers several tips, including:
- Do not answer texts or calls from unknown numbers.
- Do not share personal, identifying information like Social Security numbers, account numbers, or mother’s maiden names.
- Be wary of anyone who talks quickly and pressures you to make a decision quickly.
- Do not send cash by messenger, overnight mail, or money transfer. If you pay for a product or service with cash or a money transfer, you run a risk of losing the right to dispute fraudulent charges.
