{"id":147602,"date":"2026-02-13T21:18:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147602"},"modified":"2026-02-13T21:18:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:18:32","slug":"state-police-investigate-bitcoin-fraud-in-northampton-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147602","title":{"rendered":"State Police Investigate Bitcoin Fraud in Northampton County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>[Northampton County, PA]\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013\u00a0The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) Troop M \u2013 Bethlehem and\u00a0the Northampton County Sheriffs Department are urging residents not to fall victim to Bitcoin\u00a0scams involving warrant payments, and to hang up the phone immediately if they suspect the call is a scam.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Residents are receiving phone calls from unknown callers indicating they are \u201cNorthampton\u00a0County Sheriffs\u201d and there is a warrant for their arrest for failing to report for jury duty. Callers\u00a0advise the victim&#8217;s payment via Bitcoin is needed for the warrants to be voided. Callers often tell victims that they have to stay on the phone for long periods of time.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Recent\u00a0fraudulent incidents include:<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong> December 20, 2025<\/strong>: Victim received phone call from a scammer indicating they were a Northampton County Sheriff and had (2) warrants for her arrest for failing to report for jury duty. Victim made (3) Bitcoin transactions which totaled $10,000<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>February 9, 2026:<\/strong>Victim received a phone call from a scammer indicating they were a Northampton County Sheriff and indicated there was a warrant for her arrest and she needed to make payments via Bitcoin. The victim deposited $4,000 in Bitcoin transactions prior to Troopers making a traffic stop indicting it was a scam.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>February 11, 2026:\u00a0<\/strong>Victim received a phone call from a scammer indicating they were a Northampton County Sheriff and had (2) warrants for her arrest and needed to make payment via Bitcoin. The victim made (2) transactions totaling $16,500 before realizing it was a scam.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><em>State Police and the Northampton County Sheriffs Office are urging residents if they receive a\u00a0phone call indicating payment is needed to law enforcement, to hang up immediately. Law\u00a0Enforcement never asks for payment over the phone and do not accept alternate payment\u00a0methods such as Bitcoin.<\/em><\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For more information on the Pennsylvania State Police, visit\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wo6djquab.cc.rs6.net\/tn.jsp?f=001sTIj8RzLrQ2oJUMszUsjojFJDH9ALoh44iqWG8k3jy-3oISAEWHOD_rwOAy9dQfQooK9BIcOJYLuyDkHtTpnyEUY8U0ZJj6GluukdbbwuI4F2ptGGLQBwXLmvY_q8wzxQhCD009R5An52diu6j6w0POi848WhGMr&amp;c=dRZyyOV6s9KoHCGWxvoO27qQGaZIntL6tpgFSxDWIs31DtPZ7sxQFA==&amp;ch=g2cWodBuDh8wRdRX1973ghdsgdBkrXAiJqEfK2LpF64ByHpbUk4wPw==\">www.psp.pa.gov<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on the Northampton County Sheriffs Department, visit\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wo6djquab.cc.rs6.net\/tn.jsp?f=001sTIj8RzLrQ2oJUMszUsjojFJDH9ALoh44iqWG8k3jy-3oISAEWHOD_rwOAy9dQfQcBt4HDiKADjaBLNYqT66r-YR190M1Md_Q8yNfDAisDfWnqSnPeTggNQez4Olt9OcD3eTwv0A4PBMGqsXPSpsmpUouQGQdqMqMkzuBYRVGqAFZYSbtdPNvg==&amp;c=dRZyyOV6s9KoHCGWxvoO27qQGaZIntL6tpgFSxDWIs31DtPZ7sxQFA==&amp;ch=g2cWodBuDh8wRdRX1973ghdsgdBkrXAiJqEfK2LpF64ByHpbUk4wPw==\">www.norcopa.gov\/sheriffs-department<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\nNorthampton County Executive Office<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Northampton County, PA]\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) Troop M \u2013 Bethlehem and\u00a0the Northampton County Sheriffs Department are urging residents not to fall victim to Bitcoin\u00a0scams involving warrant payments, and to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147602\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">State Police Investigate Bitcoin Fraud in Northampton County<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,5738,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-northampton-county","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/psp-ns.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147604,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147602\/revisions\/147604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/147603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}