A little after three in the afternoon, a number you don't recognize. You pick up, and the caller opens with your full name, rattles off a case number, then asks you to confirm the last few digits of your ID. He says he's an investigator with a government agency, that an account in your name has turned up in a cross-border money-laundering case, and that the investigation is already under way. You start to answer and he cuts in: don't hang up, and don't tell anyone, not even family. The case is confidential.
Thirty seconds in, he has laid down three things: who he is, what you're accused of, and the rules you're to follow. However long the call runs, everything after that is pressure applied to those three, and it ends in the same demand: move the money in your accounts, your crypto above all, into a "safe account" he names so it can be examined, with all of it to be returned once you're cleared.
What this call borrows is the authority of the state. When the caller claims to be exchange or platform support instead, the script is a different one.
- IC3 is blunt about it: law enforcement and government agencies will never call or text you to demand payment or to ask for personal or sensitive information, and will never ask to be paid with prepaid cards, cryptocurrency or cash sent by courier.
- No justice system has such a thing as a "safe account." Once you hear those words, the call can end.
- There is one way to check who is calling: hang up, find the agency's number yourself through its official public channels, and call back. Ignore any phone number or link the caller gave you. IC3 spells this out.
How the call unfolds, stage by stage
IC3 is the Internet Crime Complaint Center, part of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. On September 17, 2026 it updated its public service announcement on scammers impersonating law enforcement and government officials (alert number I-091726-PSA, an update to its earlier warning of March 7, 2022). The notice describes the opening moves in some detail, and the three stages below follow its account.
First, he makes you believe who he is
The caller ID shows a number you can look up. He knows your name and can give an agency, a job title and a badge number. Scammers spoof real phone numbers and email addresses, use the names and credentials of real staff, and pose as well-known government and law enforcement agencies, IC3 itself included. A number that checks out and a name that matches prove nothing at this stage.
Then he makes you believe you're in trouble
Most complaints begin the same way. You're accused of a crime or linked to a case and threatened with arrest, prosecution or jail unless you pay to make the case go away, or pay to help investigators catch the real criminals. That second version is harder to resist: it moves you from suspect to helper, and you feel you're doing the right thing.
Last, he offers you a way out
The way out is to pay. It may be called a security deposit, an asset audit or verification of funds; the label doesn't matter. The payment methods IC3 lists are prepaid cards, cash sent by courier, bank wire transfers, cryptocurrency, and cash fed into a cryptocurrency ATM (kiosk). With crypto there is no way back from this step. Whoever holds the private key to the address holds the coins.
Some versions add a video call. IC3 notes that scammers are already using artificial intelligence to pose as law enforcement or government officials on video, and in the variant aimed at foreign nationals they also wear fake police uniforms and stage a convincing "office." A video feed doesn't turn a cold call into law enforcement, and there are ways to check whether the person on a video call is real.
IC3's numbers, and whose complaints they count
First, what these figures measure. They come from complaints filed with IC3 itself, so they describe the United States. They aren't global, and they can't tell you how many people in Chinese-speaking communities have had one of these calls. They are more useful as a catalog of the pretexts scammers use, because the scripts behind the categories below are close to the versions that circulate in Chinese.
From January 2025 through July 2026, IC3 received nearly 61,000 complaints about scams impersonating law enforcement or government officials, with losses of more than $1.6 billion. The notice breaks out only a few categories. The rows below add up to about a fifth of all complaints, and the rest aren't split by pretext:
| The pretext | Complaints | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| You skipped jury duty or missed a court date, there's a warrant for your arrest, and paying settles it | 6,833 | Nearly $36 million |
| Your passport, driver's license or professional license is about to expire and you must pay to renew it | 496 | More than $348,000 |
| Aimed at healthcare workers: your license is about to be revoked, or someone has used it to commit a crime | 3,322 | More than $37 million |
| Posing as foreign law enforcement or foreign diplomats posted to the US, threatening extradition or cancellation of your home-country passport | 1,809 | More than $140 million |
The last row deserves a closer look. Its 1,809 complaints are a small slice of the nearly 61,000, yet the losses top $140 million, far more per complaint than in the other categories. IC3 says this type often targets minority communities, foreign nationals and international students. The methods include fake police uniforms and mock-ups of official offices, and the threat is extradition or the cancellation of your home-country passport. For Chinese-speaking readers living abroad, this is the row that hits closest to home: calls made in Chinese use the same two threats.
Urgent, don't hang up, don't tell anyone
IC3 lists several traits these calls share: an urgent, aggressive tone; a refusal to speak with, or leave a message for, anyone but the target; an insistence that you stay on the line; and an instruction not to tell family, friends, your financial institution or law enforcement.
Taken one at a time, those four can pass for investigative procedure. Together they do something else: everyone around you who might say "this doesn't sound right" has been ruled out in advance. The secrecy rule blocks your family. The ban on telling your financial institution blocks the bank teller. Staying on the line means you never get the few minutes alone it would take to look up an official number. IC3 doesn't say this next part; it is our reading. Only someone who needs you not to check goes to the trouble of closing off every chance to check.
So "I'd never fall for this" doesn't help here. Your judgment hasn't slipped. The things it needs to work with have been taken away: you can't get a second opinion, you can't check a second source, and you're being hurried the whole time. Scammers stack these pressure tactics one on top of another.
A test you can apply mid-call
The line "you can't hang up now, and you can't tell anyone" has nothing to do with the case and nothing to do with evidence. It bears only on whether you get a chance to check. Once a caller says it, you don't need to hear the rest.
After you hang up: checks you can finish on your own
The steps below come from the protective advice in the IC3 notice, put into an order you can follow the moment you put the phone down.
Hang up without explaining
You don't need a reason to end the call. If the caller really is from an agency, it has formal channels for reaching you again. Mainland China's 96110 anti-fraud line is a different matter: it calls only to urge you to stop a transfer and will not ask you to pay or move crypto, so hear that call out.
Write down who he claims to be, then find the number yourself
Give out no personal information until you've confirmed who you're dealing with: ask for the caller's credentials, then contact the agency yourself through its official public channels to verify. The second half is what counts. Use contact details you looked up, never a number, a link or a transfer to an extension that the caller supplies.
Compare the domain and check the extension
Before opening any web address the caller sends, check that the domain is the agency's official one. The trick IC3 names is a near-identical domain or the wrong domain extension, and the notice's example is a .com standing in for a .gov. On Chinese-language sites the same trick shows up as imitation official sites with a similar spelling, an extra hyphen or a different extension.
Walk someone else through the call
Find a family member, a coworker, anyone with no part in this, and tell them what the caller said, word for word. This step works for the very reason the caller forbade it.
If you've already sent money or handed over your details
Start with the general sequence for what to do right after a scam: cut off contact, alert your bank and payment providers, change your passwords and turn on two-factor authentication. The points below are specific to this kind of call:
- Keep all the evidence. IC3's list: the caller's contact details, the bank accounts or cryptocurrency addresses involved along with the payment records, and communications such as texts and emails. For crypto, add the transaction hash, the name of the network, the time of the transfer, and the original message in which the caller sent you the receiving address. Screenshot any "case number" or "badge number" he quoted and any forged ID he showed you.
- Details handed over but no money sent? That still needs action. ID photos, a home address and account details get used in the next round. The first question at the end of this guide goes through what to do.
- Report through the channel for where you are. The channels below are as shown on each agency's official pages in September 2026.
- United States: file a complaint with the FBI's IC3 and contact your local police as well, which is what the IC3 notice itself advises. This route fits only if you are in the US or the money ended up there.
- Hong Kong: the Hong Kong Police Force's Anti-Deception Coordination Centre runs the Anti-Scam Helpline 18222 for enquiries around the clock (the linked page is in Chinese), and that page says anyone already defrauded should report at the nearest police station. You can first look up the caller's phone number or receiving account in Scameter.
- Taiwan: the 165 anti-fraud website of the National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior. Call the 165 anti-fraud hotline or file a report on the site.
- Elsewhere, including mainland China: report to the police where you live.
As for getting it back: once crypto has left your wallet, whether it can be recovered isn't something we can promise, and neither can anyone who contacts you out of the blue.
The calls that come after you report
Next, someone may get in touch offering to "recover" or "unfreeze" your crypto for an upfront fee. Treat this as a second scam; there's no need to work out whether it's genuine. Unsolicited contact, a guaranteed result and a fee in advance: when all three are present, that is enough.
Two questions that come up after these calls
I haven't sent any money, but I've already sent photos of my ID and my bank account details. What should I do now?
Treat it as though the scam has already happened. Material like this usually serves two purposes: it makes a second approach more convincing, since the next caller will know more about you, and it can be used to try to open accounts or take over existing ones. What you can do: change the passwords on the accounts involved and turn on two-factor authentication; tell your bank or payment provider what happened and ask whether a risk flag should go on your account; keep screenshots of what you sent and of the caller's accounts; and file a report through one of the reporting channels listed above for where you live. One step is easy to miss: tell your family. The scammers now hold your details, and contacting relatives while posing as you is a common next move.
An older relative is on one of these calls right now and won't let me step in. What can I do?
Cut the call first, explain afterwards. The cut has to be physical, so press hang up, pull the cord or take the phone away. Who was right can wait. The scammer's control depends on an unbroken call, and once it's cut he has to rebuild it. Argue mid-call that it's a scam and your relative is more likely to slip into another room and keep listening. Once the line is dead, hold back the blame and try this instead: let's call the official number together and find out, and if it's real I'll go with you. Making the check something you do together is far easier than getting them to admit they were nearly taken in. Also look at whether they've added the caller on a messaging app, and delete the contact if so. These calls often move from the phone to chat.