WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas — The phrase often goes: if you see something suspicious, say something.
So when Mindy Jordan saw a woman in her 80s on Wednesday depositing thousands of dollars into a Bitcoin machine at a Chevron gas station off of I-30 in White Settlement, Texas, she knew she couldn't ignore it.
“She’s all bent down trying to put hundred dollar bills in,” said Jordan of the June 12 incident. “And I could hear the people on the phone and I’m like, 'Ma’am, do you know these people?' and she’s like no.”
Jordan assessed the situation and knew it was likely a scam that targeted the older woman.
“The lady was just really, really scared she had $44,000 cash money in her hands,” Jordan said. “I said, Ma'am, I believe you're being scammed. And she said, 'No, no, no. It's the bank, I got to pay this back.'”
When a conversation with the woman didn’t work, Jordan called 911. Moments later, Sgt. James Stewart showed up. His body camera captured the terrified woman.
In the video, the woman tells Stewart she’s in danger. Then, Stewart takes the phone and begins hounding the scammer on the other end of the line, at one point calling him a moron.
“This woman was just a couple of years older than my own mom and I couldn’t imagine someone doing this to her,” Stewart said.
Jordan and Stewart intervened right on time, saving the woman thousands of dollars. It's a rare, happy ending to the fraud scheme and a cautionary tale for others.
“We got her her money back,” Stewart said. “Only thing that made it better would be to put him in jail.”