Exposing a scammer impersonating to be a member of the US Army

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Scammers around the world are smart enough though, but they fall into wrong hands sometimes, thus resulting in getting busted or exposed. For many decades, we have been hearing about a bunch of scammers from the African countries – mostly from Nigeria. But, for the first time, an Indian scammer with a network in Thailand is being caught red-handed, who is using an email account on Gmail, a WhatsApp number as well as a Facebook ID.

How things got exposed?

On October 19, 2020, I received a friend request from a Facebook ID named Jessica Peter, where it is stated that it hails from Elizabeth, New Jersey. In her profile, the ID owner describes itself as “First class nurse at I’m an ICU Nurse in United State Military/Nasa”. WhatsApp number of this ‘Jessica’ is +1-856-425-2213, while email ID is Jessica R Peterson <[email protected]>.

According to my search, it was found that the telephone area code 856 covers southwestern New Jersey, especially the Camden/Cherry Hill and Vineland areas, as well as a very small part of Willingboro Township, along with the western part of Burlington County.

On October 20, 2020, I received the following email from that so-called Jessica R Peterson:

Hello Dear,

I hope all is well with you, and how are you enjoying your day over there in your Country? Thanks for writing me like i requested. My name is Sgt. Jessica.R.Peterson, I’m 32 years old single. I’m an ICU Nurse in United State [please look here, this individual though pretending to be working in the US Army, even does not correctly spell the name of the country] Military/Nasa, from New Jersey, USA, but i am presently based in Kabul Afghanistan for the fight against terrorism and peacekeeping. I really need a supportive, caring sincere person to establish a true relationship that may lead to good things in life or something else with you, it’s my pleasure meeting you.

I will like to get acquainted with you, I am a loving, honest and caring person with a good sense of humor despite my profession. I enjoy reading, working, traveling, meeting new people and knowing their way of life, I enjoy watching the sea waves and the beauty of the mountains and everything that nature has to offer. Please tell me more about you, your likes and dislike, it is very nice to know and be your friend, wishing you all the best, thank you as i still wait to read from you.

I want us to be close because i need someone to be sharing ideas with here. I believe we will be best of friends. I will also be happy to come over to your country during my leave very soon. I shall keep you updated as we proceed in our chatting. Take good care of yourself.

On receiving the above email, I was certain that this is a scammer, which would start talking about money.

Within less than an hour, the same account holder sent me the following message on my WhatsApp number:

Hello Beloved, Thanks for your reply, I am happy to know you. Regarding what i said in my previous message, I know you might be wondering what i want to tell you. My dear, I want you to read this with full understanding without a single doubt because it’s true. Like you know, Yemen has been under Terrorist insurgency for some years now. We are being attacked by terrorists constantly. Something happened a couple of weeks ago, and I have been looking for someone who will see things from my own point, someone whom I can have confidence on.

I’m opening up this to you because i really need to confide on someone because i cannot do this alone and I believe you’re the right person for this. I hope you will not misunderstand me as we never known each other before, i have in my possession the sum of $3.2 USD million ( three million two hundred thousand united states dollar ) Which I made here in Kabul Afghanistan during one of our search and rescue duty here, my team came across hidden treasure that contains a huge amount of money which we believe it was for Isis militants to buying weapons and ammunition for terrorist attacks, my teams and i decided to take some cash out for ourselves.

Because my assignment here will be over soonest i have evacuate my share of this money out of Afghanistan though the help dragon delivery security service to Thailand, which where the box is now, i really need your help to receive the box from dragon delivery security service, I have decided to use my own share of the money to build an orphanage home, a charity organization to benefit the less privileged who were affected in one way or the other, that was why i decided to contact you immediately I saw your profile. You look nice and decent, Though I know it’s too early, but we must act as a matter of urgency due to my limited time here. I really need your assistance so that I will come over to meet you directly from here before going to see my parents. I will be coming over to your home so that we’ll plan on how to use the money for the organization and more. I hope my explanation is very clear, but if you need further clarification just let me know and I will explain further.

You may wonder why I am so soon revealing myself to you without a formal introduction. Well, i will say that my mind convinced me that you are the true person to help me on this and i have no other option to confide in you despite the short period of time. Trust doesn’t matter how long you’ve known the person. People can still betray long age relationship and trust. I have decided to compensate you for 30% of the total money once the money is delivered to you, while the rest balance shall be invested in the organization like i mentioned earlier. We can run the organization together if you wish to be part of it.

One passionate appeal, i want you to make sure you don’t discuss this matter to a third party, if you do not want to assist me, please kindly delete this message from your email box to avoid any leakage of this information and it will be dangerous to me based on my position here. I want to let you know that here in the military zone we are not allowed to make used of mobile phones, we only make use of radio message and email communication so please let us continue communicating through email for the meantime. Conclusively, I wish you could send me a reply immediately in regards to this proposal, your urgent reply will be highly appreciated. I wait to receive your acceptable reply as soon as you read this letter.

Best Regards With love and hug

Sgt. Jessica Peterson US Army

Non-existent Dragon Delivery Security Service

There is no existence of any entity named Dragon Delivery Security Service in the entire world.

The owner of phone number 1-856-425-2213

According to data availed through truecaller and other systems, 1-856-425-2213 belongs to Jessyy and is provided by Bandwidth.com, CLEC, LLC, New Jersey. This phone is from SPRINT SPECTRUM L.P. Further details of this phone number can be obtained from HERE.

Further investigation

After searching LinkedIn, it was revealed that the above person is also having an account on this social media site, which has been searched by lots of Indian nationals, meaning, there might have been similar communications by the so-called Sgt. Jessica Peterson with the individuals who have tried to know further details about this individual.

Most importantly, the picture of the so-called Jessica Peterson on Facebook and WhatsApp are not the same though both are used by the same individual.

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