A Tennessee man has been arrested for trying to scam an Izard County woman out of nearly $20,000. Thirty-year-old Darren James Burton of Clarksville, Tennessee was arrested in Searcy on Saturday on four felony charges.According to the probable cause affidavit from the Izard County Sheriff’s Office, the victim first reported the scam Nov. 19 when she received a text saying $19,400 had been taken from her bank account. Shortly after receiving the text, the victim started getting phone calls from the scammer saying she had been hacked and he wanted to help her retrieve her money.
The man instructed the woman to put $19,400 in a box, write “Merry Christmas” on it and he would send a courier to pick it up. Once collected, he would duplicate the money and deposit back into the victim’s account. The suspect on several occasions urged the victim not to tell anyone about their conversation and said if she did, she and her family would be in danger. The scammer called when the driver was about due to pick the box up and said the driver had an accident and would not be able to get the box that day.
The following day, investigators with the sheriff’s office and the 16th Judicial Drug Task Force started surveillance on the victim’s home and were able to witness several phone calls with at least two different suspects. The callers claimed to have apprehended five of the seven “hackers” and were trying to catch the other two. They told the victim not to tell anyone of their conversations or about the hackers. The calls continued several days and revealed to investigators the suspects were either having trouble finding the victim’s address or the “money mules” were not available to travel to the area…