[Music] hello and welcome to on thebeat I'm detective Diana Tapia with the public information office at the Mesa Police Department today in studio we have Sergeant Mike goule who is a sergeant over document crimes and he will be talking to us about internet scams we will also be talking to Chief George gasone but now let's go on location with Detective Chris rvo who is out with our new command van thank you Diana this morning I'm here in front of the new Mesa Police Department incident command vehicle we received the vehicle in 2007 with the help of a Homeland Security Grant there's a few reasons why we would use this vehicle and there's going to be times when citizens will see this in their neighborhood the first reason and the most important reason is any act that involves Homeland Security anytime we can mobilize a mobile command system which allows our Command Staff to make key decisions out in the field you will see this vehicle also in major crime scenes whether it be homicide scene uh a violent crime any incident that would require us to have numerous detectives on hand it can allow us to set up work the crime scene in comfort and allow us to do many of the things that we do at the police station so if you see this vehicle in your neighborhood don't be alarmed rest assured we're conducting some sort of investig mation and it's for everyone's benefit if you have any questions about the new Mesa Police Department mobile command vehicle you're asked to contact the Mesa police at 48644 2211 back to you Diana thank you Chris for the useful information we are hoping that our citizens of Mesa will now have a better understanding of what our new command van does now let's go back on location to detective Steve Barry who's out with our chief of police George gasone thanks Diana now here with chief gasone chief what can you tell us about the upcoming bond election well Steve uh we're working with city council and the mayor's office and of course the incoming city council and the mayor in order to structure a bond package that would be put off for Public Safety later this year uh there are several things that we're trying to get through on that bond package one of them will be a new station for Dobson uh another one would be we need to upgrade our our helicopter Fleet uh we're also looking the possibility of creating an arraignment Center in the old Court as the court moves into the new building in a year from now uh additionally we're looking at uh several upgrades to our communication systems uh we know that we have some problems with our radio systems that come 2011 uh some of our systems will be uh no longer operable um we're also looking at the possibility of obtaining money to build a secondary communication system so that we have a redundancy in order to ensure that if one of our system goes down the other one will be up and running um there are also some other technological uh requests that we're making uh it is not clear at this point how many of the items are going to be going through to the bond obviously we're going to have to work with a new mayor and a new city council but I I think it's important for our people to recognize two things number one uh that this is a very critical year for us in public safety both for police and fire uh and number two that we are going to be needing a great deal of public support in order to get this items through um also this is somewhat historic because if this Bond uh package does go through it will be the first time in the city that it actually will have aach a secondary property tax um so it's going to need a lot of support in order to get this through wow chief that sounds like a great package sounds like we've got a lot of important things tied to that one of the other things that's going along that of course with the change in the economy and the budget is our volunteer program that we've got here at the police Department what can you tell me about that program well you know we have uh the Mesa Police Department historically has had one of the best volunteer programs in the nation uh in fact last year we uh received over 20,000 hours of service from our volunteers uh we're now in the process of re-engineering the program uh we want to increase the number of volunteers we have approximately 120 to 130 active volunteers and my goal is to at least double that number in 2000 between 2008 and 2009 uh volunteers really offer two things for us uh number one is obviously they come in and they work with us and they take a lot of things that normally would require a pay employee to do and that is significant savings to us but the other thing too is a volunteers Ser serve as a conduit as as a vehicle to communicate uh messages from the community into the police department and from the police department to the rest of the community so they play a very critical roles and we're very proud of our program today and we frankly like to enhance it sure wow Chief it sounds like we've got a lot going on here at the pro at the police department and those are some great things we got coming up hey thanks for being with us today see my pleasure all right thank you welcome back today we are going to speak to Sergeant Mike gay who oversees a document crimes unit at the police department Sergeant gulay what types of crimes does your unit investigate we take care of the fraud types of crimes and that could be anything from uh embezzlements identity theft credit card fraud uh some forms of Internet type of crimes as well what types of Internet crimes have you seen there's quite a variety of uh crimes that are out there that involve the internet and unfortunately uh as the internet becomes more and more popular uh those crimes are also going to increase so we have dealt with a number of scams for instance on the uh on the internet what what types of scams I know that the internet has become such a commonly used tool for everyone in their everyday lives and we can easily be victimized by certain things that are on the internet what types of scams have you seen well something that's really popular that we're seeing an increase of it at least I'm seeing some additional reports more have to do with the um lottery or a sweep St sweep Stakes type of scam um the victim will actually receive unsolicited an email saying congratulations you're you're the winner of the whatever Lottery whatever sweep Stak and um then the bottom line is they are asking that victim to send a certain amount of money uh usually by wiring the money to some location to cover the taxes or to cover getting the money into the country because they're telling them this might be from Canada or might be from some other country um so what'll happen is that person will actually go ahead and send that money and uh never hear back again or what will happen happen is that they will send that money off to wherever they're asked to send it to then they'll get another email correspondent saying thank you we received that but we're having some additional problems getting that money to you so they'll ask for some more money and unfortunately we've had victims who have given up several thousands of dollars because of this one particular scam now is it an email that is received through the lottery or is it how how do how do they get the information initially that it's called fishing um and basically the perpetrators out there they just do a blanket email to a number of uh email addresses in hopes that somebody will take the bait and that's that one particular uh type of scam now there is another one that is is very popular that we're seeing and that is when the individual has something that they're listing for sale on the email and that could be on a number of websites such as uh eBay or Craigslist um and they'll put that item up for sale let's say it's for5 $100 and someone will eventually correspond with them by way of email saying oh that's the product that I wanted that's the certain item I've been looking for and they'll Converse back and forth trying to get more information trying to get that person off guard um and then eventually what's going to happen is they will tell them that they will be receiving a check in the mail and please forward the item to me well what will happen is they will get a check in the mail or by way of of uh any other type of method of receiving it either through some type of FedEx or something to that effect uh unfortunately what happen is that check will be for more than what the actual asking price was now the reason for that is they want that individual to take the bait on that and cash that check many times the person will correspond with them uh back by way of emails saying hey wait a minute the item was $500 but you sent me a check for 800 they'll say something like oh my assistant made the mistake but go ahead and casat cash the check and then by way of wies send us the difference back and you know it's it's causing you a lot of trouble to do to this so take an extra 10% for your trouble so they will go ahead and do that they will send them that difference back and um then maybe a week two weeks later their Bank notifies them and says that check that you cashed was fraudulent and they want the money back um and or many times they'll actually close or put a stop on their account due to the fraudulent activity so unfortunately they will be out of that money so This sounds too good to be true when somebody sends you a check you know the item is $500 you get a check for $1,000 no one's going to give you an extra $500 just because you know and that's the thing with the internet scams um when you mention it's too good to be true because if a person had correspondence with individuals either regarding sweep Stakes even though they never even entered the contest or uh like with they're selling something if they need to use some common sense and just listen to you know sometimes you hear people say oh you know I had that gut feeling or something they need to listen to that um there are um many scams that are going on out there so just uh if it's too good to be true it probably is well that's good to know what information what resources are out there for people who have been victimized by an internet scam well I think um there there are number number of resources that that are available uh via the Internet uh there are websites out there where a person could uh file a report with the for instance with there's a particular FBI website um that they can use to file that report or if you know if a person thinks that they might be getting scammed and they haven't gone forward yet and G and given the money away or sent the money off or or done anything to lose money there's certainly websites that are available where they can go on and uh look at and see what what are the latest scams that are out there and and I've also had phone calls too from a number of citizens who have said you know I've got this email I'm not quite sure and uh they'll talk to myself or any other members of our unit and uh we'll be more than happy to kind of give them the latest information now since this looks and it appears to be a commonly committed crime identity theft very popular we hear a lot of preventative businesses out there advertising that you know they can secure someone's identity theft and and all these things that are on the internet what who is it that the victims can report this to if they've become a victim can they report it to the police department will the police department investigate it at a local level or is this something that can be done maybe at a federal level well again it kind of depends on what the circumstances are um we have certainly had a number of reports uh that have been filed with the police department sometimes we'll have to forward those reports onto the various appropriate agencies because the problem with the internet crime is that um it's very difficult for a local jurisdiction to investigate as I had said earlier many times these scams don't even originate within um the state the country they usually many times are with you know outside the country making it very very difficult for a local agency you know to investigate so that's why the FBI has set up for instance a website where people can actually file that report as well that's very helpful thank you for taking the time to speak to us today about this important crime and I think that anybody can become a victim of an internet scam [Music] absolutely for more information please feel free to log on to our website or you can call us at 480 644221 thank you for watching