Fake Police Calls Cost Americans $1.6 Billion: The Callback Rule That Stops Them

The phone rings, and the voice on the line says it is the police. You missed jury duty, or your name came up in a case, or your license is about to be pulled. There is a way to make it go away, but it has to happen now, and you cannot tell anyone. On September 17, 2026 the FBI published a new public service announcement about exactly this call, and the numbers in it are large enough that every small business should have a plan for it.

What the FBI counted

Between January 2025 and July 2026 the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received nearly 61,000 complaints about people impersonating law enforcement or government officials, with losses of more than $1.6 billion (FBI IC3, alert I-091726-PSA). That is nineteen months of reports, and it only covers people who filed one.

The alert breaks the total into versions of the same story. Calls about a missed jury duty date or an arrest warrant produced 6,833 complaints and nearly $36 million in losses. Calls that threatened medical practitioners with an expiring or misused license produced 3,322 complaints, about half as many as the jury scam, yet more than $37 million in losses. Calls from people posing as foreign police or diplomatic officials produced only 1,809 complaints and more than $140 million in losses. The pattern is worth noticing: the versions aimed at professionals and at people with ties abroad are rarer, and they cost more per victim.

The script barely changes

The FBI describes the same moves in almost every case. The caller spoofs a real agency number or a real employee name. The tone is urgent and aggressive. You are kept on the phone for the whole conversation, and you are told not to tell family, friends, your bank or the police. Then comes the payment request: prepaid cards, couriers, bank wires, cryptocurrency, or cash fed into a cryptocurrency kiosk.

Two sentences in the alert settle the question for anyone who is unsure. Law enforcement and government authorities will never contact the public by phone or text to demand any form of payment. And officials will never ask for payment by prepaid card, cryptocurrency or courier (FBI IC3). If a caller asks for either, the call is the scam.

Now add AI

The newest line in the alert is about technology. The FBI says scammers use artificial intelligence to support these schemes, including appearing as law enforcement and government officials on video calls. An earlier FBI alert already warned that criminals use AI-generated audio to impersonate public figures and relatives, and generate real-time video of executives and law enforcement (FBI IC3, alert I-120324-PSA).

The Federal Trade Commission explains how little a cloned voice takes: a short audio clip, often taken from something posted online, plus a voice-cloning program. Its advice fits in four words: do not trust the voice (FTC consumer alert). We covered the wider voice-clone picture, including the Arup case and the FBI's 2025 numbers, in our voice-clone fraud guide.

One rule for the whole team

Most of these losses happen because one person, alone on one call, can move money. The fix is a rule that takes that power away from the call itself. Write it down, put it next to the phone, and make sure everyone who can pay a bill knows it.

1. Hang up. A real agency will not punish you for ending a call to verify it.
2. Find the number yourself. Use the agency's official website or a published directory. Never use a number, link or name the caller gave you. The FBI says this directly: do not use contact information provided by the person contacting you.
3. Call back. Ask the agency whether the case, the warrant or the license issue exists.
4. Use a secret word. The FBI suggests a secret word or phrase for families. The same idea works in a small office: an owner who calls with an urgent payment request has to say the word.
5. Never pay by gift card, crypto or courier. No agency takes these, so no exception is needed.

If it already happened

Stop all contact, call your bank or card issuer right away, report to local police, and file at ic3.gov. The FBI asks for the caller's numbers and emails, the payment details, and any texts or messages you kept.

Sources. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: Scammers Impersonating Law Enforcement and Government Officials in Fraud Schemes, I-091726-PSA, September 17, 2026; Criminals Use Generative Artificial Intelligence to Facilitate Financial Fraud, I-120324-PSA, December 3, 2024. Federal Trade Commission: Scammers use AI to enhance their family emergency schemes.

PATech Labs builds voice AI for small businesses in the United States, with caller verification and a human in the loop for anything that touches money. A voice alone should never be enough to move a payment. Talk to us if you want that built into your phone line.