For six agonizing hours, 74-year-old Wanda Touard was held emotionally captive by scammers, most likely located on the other side of the globe. St. Tammany Parish has been seeing a disturbing increase in phone scams.
Body camera footage captured the moment when St. Tammany Deputy Cliff Lemoine, accompanied by his therapy dog Luna Belle, checked on Touard, who had been unreachable by her concerned family.
“Hello, I’m Deputy Lemoine. How are you?” he asked. “OK,” replied Touard, tears streaming down her face. “What’s going on?” he continued. “I’ve been going all day. I couldn’t talk to anybody,” she sobbed.
For hours, Touard had been manipulated and isolated by scammers, running on fumes—literally. “I’m low on fuel. I haven’t eaten. I haven’t taken my medication,” she told Lemoine, visibly shaken.
It all started when Touard called what she thought was Apple’s customer support after finding a number online. On the other end of the line, someone posing as “Apple Security” informed her that scammers were about to drain $12,000 from her account by purchasing a gold bar. They convinced her that the only way to prevent the theft was to withdraw nearly $11,000 from her bank and buy gift cards.
The scam intensified when the criminals had Touard click on a link that gave them remote access to her phone, allowing them to see and hear everything. They even blocked her from contacting her family, warning, “You can’t connect. You can’t talk to anybody. You can’t text anybody, because your family will be in jeopardy.”
After draining her funds, the scammers cashed out the gift cards and then instructed her to deposit more money into a Bitcoin ATM at a gas station. It was there that a Bitcoin employee intervened. “Ma’am, I believe you’re being told what to do. Why are you trying to put money in our machine?” the employee asked, realizing something was wrong.
St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith acknowledged the rising number of scam cases in the area. “They’re from another country. Believe me, if we could track them down and make an arrest, I would love to,” Smith said. He also warned that scammers are using the names of real officials to convince victims they owe money for things like missing jury duty. Even the sheriff’s own late mother had received such calls and reached out to him to verify their legitimacy.
After losing nearly $11,000, Touard has been forced to move to a lower-rent apartment. The quick action of Deputy Lemoine saved her from losing even more. Though embarrassed, Touard is sharing her story to protect others from similar scams.
Scammers often use fake phone numbers that appear on caller ID as official government agencies. Sheriff Smith emphasized that law enforcement will never ask for money over the phone.