On January 22 and 23, 2025, a number of Madison County residents with addresses within the city of Norfolk received suspicious calls. The calls were made from a male with a reportedly southern accent. The male was claiming to represent officials from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office and used specific names and ranks, which were accurate, to affirm credibility. The male did not always ask for any financial or additional personal information. They were already aware of the Norfolk residents’ name, date of birth, address, and phone number. The male explained the reason for the call was because the resident had been summed to court or missed a summons to court. The resident was then asked to report to the courthouse immediately or to explain why they did not / could not respond. The majority of the calls originated from the phone number 402-495-6497. It was reported that at least one call came from the Sheriff’s Office main line, 402-454-2110.

It is possible a batch of personal information of Norfolk residents was collected from the dark web. Personal information is occasionally stolen from data breaches and later sold. While some personal information is not immediately dangerous in the hands of a criminal it could be further utilized to obtain additional information. It is suspected they may have been attempting to gather enough of the resident’s voice to replicate utilizing an AI voice cloner. The voice cloner could then be used on future victims posing as the Norfolk resident to scam other individuals for financial gain. There have been apps and services available for some time which allow users to choose a phone number to be used as the caller ID on an outgoing call.

The Madison County Sheriff’s Office reminds its residents that a summons for court would be personally served by a uniformed deputy and would never be done hastily over the phone. Any residents receiving a call from 402-495-6497 are urged to not answer the call.

Sheriff Volk