The Lincoln Police Department is warning residents to be on the lookout for a text message scam where victims’ families are threatened with violence.
Lincoln Police Officer Luke Bonkiewicz says the department received four separate reports of the scam Tuesday, all of which had the same pattern; a victim would receive a text message from an unknown suspect who would demand money under the threat that if the victim refused, their family would “end up like those people who are murdered by drug cartels.”
Bonkiewicz says the texts would also include graphic imagery of corpses.
However, he adds that the images are widely available via Google searches of cartel violence, and that investigators believe the suspect or suspects are attempting to scare people into given them money.