Leslie Kelley, Oklahoma City

Bail Bond Scammers Are Calling Oklahoma Families Within Minutes of an Arrest. Nobody Can Stop Them.

Clara Goletto was watching her grandchildren and running on three hours of sleep when the call came. Her daughter had been arrested the night before. The voice on the line identified himself as a deputy at the Oklahoma County jail and said her daughter had COVID-19. He knew Goletto’s name, her daughter’s name and her grandchildren’s names. She lost $2,500 before she realized what was happening.

As Maya Henry reported, bail bond scams across Oklahoma have become faster, more targeted and harder to trace in the past year, fueled by artificial intelligence that can spoof legitimate phone numbers and impersonate real people, and by booking information that somehow reaches scammers within minutes of an arrest, before jail blotters are even updated.

Bondsmen across the state are tracking the surge. One Oklahoma County bondsman counted at least 15 clients scammed over five months. Victims have been told to file police reports; the reports have led nowhere. Bondsmen who filed their own complaints say police told them they were not victims. A letter to the attorney general sent in April received no response.

The scammers demand payment through Cash App, PayPal and Apple Cash, platforms that offer almost no buyer protection. Emergency contacts and phone numbers provided during booking are not public, yet scammers have used them accurately within minutes.

The FBI has told bondsmen it is focused on larger fraud operations. Investigators say untraceable numbers registered to Google Voice accounts and small businesses across the country make the trail nearly impossible to follow without a subpoena.

Victims are losing thousands. Nobody is getting caught.

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The Arbuckle Mountains are the oldest known mountain formations between the Appalachians and the Rockies, with a granite core 1.3 billion years old.

Ciao for now,

Ted Streuli Executive Director, Oklahoma Watch tstreuli@oklahomawatch.org