Kingston police are issuing a regional scam alert after receiving reports that someone has been calling local residents and impersonating police officers.
Police say scammers tell the victim that their personal banking accounts, social insurance number or other information have been involved in a major fraud or money-laundering investigation.
The victims are told they need to send funds converted to Bitcoin to fix the issue, according to police. There have been two reported cases of the scam in Kingston, and on both occasions, police say the scammers were able to get a total of about $25,000 from the victims.
Police want to remind the public that officers would never contact anyone requesting payment over the phone. Officers also note that police would never request any form of payment using Bitcoin.
If any business or corporation requests payment via Bitcoin, police stress that it is almost certainly a fraudulent request.