NAVARRO COUNTY, Texas (FOX 44) – The Navarro County Sheriff’s Office says it has received several complaints from citizens about being scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Cryptocurrency machines are being used as platforms to commit these scams. The victims reported using these machines in Navarro and surrounding counties when they were scammed.

The Sheriff’s Office says the scammers are contacting potential victims and telling them that employees of their bank are involved in money laundering, and that the bank and the potential victim are going to be under investigation. The scammers ask the potential victim not to tell anyone about the investigation.

The potential victims are being told their accounts will be frozen, that all money will be removed from them and that their money will be safe and secure by converting it to cryptocurrency. The potential victim is then advised to go to a cryptocurrency machine to place all of their money into the machine with an account number provided by the scammer.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, the money is non-returnable once placed into these machines. The scammers immediately move it from the provided account number into another. This process can be done numerous times, making the transactions untraceable.

The Sheriff’s Office says that if citizens run into this type of scam, they should contact their financial institutions in person to verify the claims by the scammers. They can also contact the Sheriff’s Office at 903-654-3002.