Police Chase Mules as AI Chatbots Run Romance Scams

Sheridan Police Officer Elizabeth Shafer told a fraud conference that AI romance scams now run at a scale local investigators cannot match. Chatbots with invented personalities can hold hundreds of conversations at once, she said, while a human operator steps in only when a target is ready to send money.

The people a small department can still reach are not those operators. They are money mules, residents who turn in unused fake checks, and romance targets who later owe the IRS.

Sheridan Police Have Stopped Chasing the Operators

Shafer’s brief was blunt about the gap. Warrants take days. The same crew can hit thousands of other people while one file crawls through a courthouse.

We’ve lost the battle against the scams. We’re not ever going to be able to get rid of them.

Elizabeth Shafer, Sheridan Police Department officer, at a fraud conference

She still works the cases. The goal, she said, is to prevent a transfer or to break the local pipe that moves the cash, because the overseas shop will not quit and will not sit for a Sheridan interview.

“We’re not going to stop them. We’re not going to catch them. They’re not going to quit,” she said. “But if I can slow them down a lot… that’s what I’m gonna do.”

By May 2026 she had already logged an $80,000 loss and a $16,000 loss in Sheridan. Through fall 2025 she had seen about $1.5 million leave town over two years, much of it through crypto ATMs she cannot claw back once the coins move.

Americans Reported $929 Million in Romance Fraud

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center put that local grind on a national clock. Its 2025 report, released April 6, 2026, logged 1,008,597 complaints and $20.877 billion in reported losses, up 26% from $16.6 billion and 859,532 complaints in 2024. The average loss was $20,699. IC3 now takes in nearly 3,000 complaints a day.

2025 INTERNET CRIME COMPLAINTS

Romance complaints rose from 17,910 in 2024, when losses were $672 million. People 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints and reported about $7.7 billion in losses, up 37%. For the first time the report carved out 22,364 complaints tied to artificial intelligence, with $893 million in losses, including more than $19 million on romance and confidence schemes that showed a likely AI link.

Federal disruption still works when someone is in the act. Operation Level Up, launched in 2024 against crypto investment fraud, has notified more than 8,000 people and cut more than $500 million in potential losses. A Sheridan officer does not run that program. She gets the leftover file after the coins are gone.

Chatbots Carry the Relationship Until Money Moves

Shafer described the factory floor in plain terms. A crew builds chatbots with a set personality and a stack of personal details, then lets the software keep dozens or hundreds of romances warm. A person joins the thread only when bank data or a wire is on the table. Online groups also hand out fabricated photos and scripts so a fake life looks documented.

That matches what IC3 wrote in its first AI chapter: generators now produce profiles and personalized talk in mass quantities, and voice clones show up in distress calls that cost victims more than $5 million in 2025. Investment complaints with a reported AI nexus topped $632 million, inside an $8.6 billion investment-fraud pile.

Scripts, Stolen Cards, and Couriers

The bot is only the front of the shop. Shafer said crews outsource stolen credit cards, couriers who pick up cash, and money mules who run the funds through ordinary bank accounts. “It’s an involved industry on a very, very high, well-organized level,” she said.

A money mule, in the FDIC inspector general’s definition, is anyone who receives or moves funds at someone else’s direction, knowing or not that the money is crime proceeds. Romance, pig-butchering crypto schemes, tech support, and impersonation scams all feed those accounts. The mule can live in the same county as the victim even when the chatbot does not.

A Search Warrant Arrives Days Too Late

Shafer’s point on timing was mechanical. Legal process that takes days protects one person after the fact, while the same kit keeps talking to everyone else. “The good guys are always going to be one to two steps behind the bad guys,” she said. “We don’t invent the crimes. The bad guys do.”

A bot that will not hold up two fingers on a video call, or that pivots from affection to a customs fee on a gift that never ships, is doing the same job those scripts were written for. The tell is useful. It still does not give Sheridan jurisdiction over a compound in another country.

The Unused Check Is the Lead Police Can Use

Shafer’s working example was a Facebook Marketplace overpayment. The resident spotted the fraud, sent no money, and handed the fake check to investigators. That was enough to warn the bank, test whether the person’s identity had been used, and go after the account on the other end.

She wants the same treatment for mule accounts. Criminals may spend months grooming someone who will eventually move money. Shutting that account down burns the relationship work, which is the part of the assembly line that still sits on U.S. soil.

THE CLOCK ON A LOCAL LEAD

1. Through fall 2025: Shafer tallies about $1.5 million in Sheridan-area losses over two years, with crypto ATM transfers treated as gone once they clear.
2. April 6, 2026: The FBI publishes the 2025 IC3 report and puts romance losses at $929 million, with AI called out as its own complaint descriptor.
3. May 2026: Shafer already has an $80,000 case and a $16,000 case on the year in Sheridan.
4. September 3, 2026: FinCEN publishes an alert on overseas scam centers after reviewing 33,904 Bank Secrecy Act reports, filed from September 8, 2023 through December 31, 2025, covering $12.7 billion in suspected scam activity.

FinCEN said the shops buy account creation, phishing, and laundering on “guarantee marketplaces,” then push proceeds through mule networks and stablecoins to exchanges outside the United States. Targets showed up in all 50 states. Gene Lange, performing the duties of under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, called digital-asset investment scams one of the largest fraud threats facing Americans.

That is the map under Shafer’s unused check. The chatbot is offshore. The mule account, the courier, and the fake instrument still touch a bank a local officer can call.

A Fake Tax Return Leaves the Victim Owing the IRS

Shafer also flagged a romance variant she has seen outside Sheridan, not yet in town. After the relationship is in place, the scammer offers to prepare the victim’s taxes, then files false papers showing six-figure wages from companies where the person never worked. The refunds, about $13,000 to $15,000, go to the scammer. When the IRS later matches the wages, the victim can owe the money back.

That pattern sits next to a scheme the IRS has already named. Promoters tell people to type fake employers, fake wages, and fake withholding into tax software, then e-file for a large refund. The IRS says it checks withholding against payroll and Social Security records, holds unverified refunds, and can assess a $5,000 frivolous-return penalty, with criminal charges also on the table. People who already filed are told to amend or to see a trusted tax professional.

The romance version adds a twist the social-media version does not need. The victim thinks a partner is helping. The refund looks like a windfall from a job they are told they had. The second bill arrives from the government, not from the chatbot.

Wyoming’s 1,552 Complaints Hide a Crypto Problem

Wyoming is a small slice of IC3’s ledger and a loud one once the dollars are sorted. The state filed 1,552 complaints in 2025. CyberWyoming Alliance, citing that FBI report, put Wyoming’s $25,826,205 in complaint losses on the year. In 2024 the FBI Denver field office had counted $43,502,744 across 1,377 complaints, third in the country per person.

WYOMING COMPLAINTS IN 2025

Cryptocurrency and crypto-wallet cases together accounted for $13,695,308. Investment fraud added $9,303,163. Business email compromise added $4,272,160. A handful of wallet complaints carried more money than hundreds of phishing files, which is why Shafer treats a crypto ATM transfer as a closed door and a paper check as an opening.

CyberWyoming’s own inbox, drawn from two years of resident tips to phishing@cyberwyoming.org, still looks like ordinary bait: 69 emails, 36 texts, 5 calls, and 4 social messages, with fake invoices the largest pile at 20. PayPal, Google, DocuSign, E-ZPass, and the Wyoming Department of Transportation were the names most often stolen. Natalie Demple, the alliance’s cybersecurity engagement manager and business counselor, said attackers lean on urgency, impersonation, and trust, and that the safe move is to pause and verify.

What Sheridan’s Scam Screen Program Does

Shafer does not want a pile of unsolicited scam texts. Mass blasts, she said, rarely give investigators a thread they can pull. She does want the pieces that still have a bank, a chain, or a name on them, even when the resident did not send a cent.

WHAT TO BRING TO A SCAM SCREEN

• Fake checks: A Marketplace overpayment or any paper instrument you did not deposit still lets police warn the bank and hunt the account behind it.
• Crypto activity: Wallet addresses, ATM receipts, and transfer records will not reverse the coins, but they can mark the mule path.
• Credit card and identity theft: Those files can freeze accounts and stop the next charge even if the first attempt failed.
• The unused pitch: Shafer asked people to report “a piece of a scam that they didn’t fall for,” because that piece may be the only local evidence the crew left.

Sheridan Police run a scam screen 24/7, in person or by phone, so an officer can look at the call, the text, or the listing and say whether it matches a known pattern. The non-emergency line is 307-672-2413. Demple also wants families and coworkers talking about live lures, because prior awareness cuts the odds of a hit, including on cloned-voice calls.

Shafer’s field rule is shorter than the IC3 form. “If they are at all aggressive… hang up, hang up, hang up,” she said. “You don’t need to talk to them.” Stay on the line and the script has more time to work. Drop it, keep the check or the screenshot, and the department still has something it can take to a bank.

“We can’t get your money back,” she said, “but if we can stop the scam, then you never become a victim.” The Sheridan scam screen stays open for that unused piece.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis for general information only. It is not legal advice, tax advice, or guidance on investments, cryptocurrency, or banking, and it does not tell any reader how to handle a live scam, a refund, or a mule-account request. Anyone who has sent money, filed a return, or been asked to move funds for another person should contact their bank, a qualified attorney, a credentialed tax professional, and local police before taking further action. Figures and program details reflect the FBI IC3 2025 report, FinCEN’s September 3, 2026 alert, IRS scam notices, CyberWyoming’s 2026 tally, and Sheridan Police comments, and those numbers and statuses can change.