The first call came just before Thanksgiving last year. She didn’t recognize the phone number, but she answered anyway.
“The person said he was an officer of the Department of Criminal Investigations looking into drug trafficking and money laundering,” the woman recalled. He seemed to know a lot about her: the states where she and her late husband had lived; his name and occupation; and her current address in Washington County, Rhode Island.
On her phone, he showed her a convincing badge and a photo ID with his name (“‘Frank’ something”), plus an article describing the supposed investigation. The woman, a 76-year-old retiree, denied any involvement.
“You can hire a very expensive criminal defense attorney, or you can cooperate with me,” Frank told her.
“Now, when you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense,” the woman acknowledged recently. But persuaded by the badge and ID, she agreed to cooperate. Otherwise, “I thought they were going to come and arrest me.”
Frank called each morning to learn where she was going, what she was doing. His team would be watching, he warned. The woman, feeling “petrified,” started looking around as she dr …