Urgent: Imposter Sheriff’s Office Phone Scam Preying On Minnesota Residents

If you were to get a phone call from the local sheriff's office's main office phone number, you might be inclined to trust the call. In this modern era, that's a bad idea.

One Northern Minnesota sheriff's office is warning about an active scam that they're seeing a lot of right now involving their phone number.

In an alert published on Thursday night (8/15), the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office says they've been experiencing "numerous scam calls" in the area. They explain that some fraudster has cloned their main office line for the sheriff's office, and they're using it to scam people.

While the scammer is posing to be from the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office, that doesn't mean their only target could be residents of the county. They could potentially target people from other areas in the region as well.

Using the phone number 218-726-2340, the scammer will call a victim, and claim you missed a court date, which has resulted in a warrant being issued for your arrest. The scammer, posing as a member of the sheriff's department, then will prompt the victim to pay money via a third-party app to clear up the warrant.

While sad and scary, this is a classic style of scam. Pose as a person of authority, threaten that the victim is in trouble, and create a sense of urgency to clear up the trouble by paying.

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Sometimes scammers will ask for payment in the form of gift cards or pre-paid cards, but in this case, they are asking for a direct electronic payment through an app.

The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office reminds that they (and other law enforcement agencies) will never call members of the public to ask for payment over the phone.

The department says if you receive a call like this, you should never provide any sort of payment, whether that be cash, credit card payment, check, gift card, or any other means of payment. If you have received one of these calls and want to file a report, you're encouraged to call 911. Otherwise, just hang up.

If you have questions about the payment of fines, the department says you should direct them to court administration.