Fake Police Phone Scammers Target Australians During National Scams Week

I had a very odd call yesterday. It was from someone claiming to be from a Police cybercrime unit saying that they’d arrested a man who was found trying to flee the country with details taken from an identity document of mine. At no point did they try and get additional details from me but they had my phone number and email address and the scene was set as being part of an ongoing investigation. I’d literally just posted an article about National Scams Week that morning, so my Spidey-senses were fully tingling. I’m also a journalist who writes about police corruption and malfeasance (including imminent warrantless police phone hacking using Israeli intelligence agency software), so my paranoia was elevated. Even then, they kept me on the line for almost 20 minutes and it was only this morning that I was able to identify hidden red flags that confirmed it was all an incredibly elaborate scam. If they can get that far with a tech journalist who routinely covers cybersecurity, they’ll have got further with regular people.

The call was from the type of number scammers and spammers use: 03 4148 9009 which was displayed by my phone as coming from a place called Baw Baw. That seemed suspicious, but it’s not something that’s unreasonable in Australia. I later discovered it’s in remote Victoria.

He also didn’t speak like a policeman: too softly spoken and with an accent that seemed to fluctuate between English and Irish. It was hard to hear on a bad line. This was suspicious to me, but not enough for me to call him out on it and certainly not enough to raise suspicions by trusting regular folk.

He continually asked me about where I stored or gave out my identity details so they could identify where this suspect might have got them from. But, he didn’t ask for mine. He already knew my email address and phone number, but they’re not hard to find.

A long, meandering conversation entailed that seemed bureaucratic enough to be police-related but they wouldn’t tell me which credentials of mine had been stolen (which got frustrating as I had to be somewhere). He then also mentioned potential cybersecurity breaches related to GDPR. Of all the things, to tip me over the edge, that was it – there’s no obvious reason why Australian police would care about European Data Privacy laws. So, I made my excuses, gave him a lecture about the lengths some scammers would go to nowadays, told him to send me through the email he’d promised and hung-up wondering if some YouTuber was trying to prank a journalist writing about scams.

I noticed I had a long, very official-looking email in my inbox, but only looked at it closely this morning. Here it is:

It reads:

FEDERAL INVESTIGATION NOTICE
Australian Federal Police — official correspondence requiring your attention

OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE
This message is issued under the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. A formal case file exists for this matter and is being handled in line with AFP administrative procedures. It is not legal advice, but it does set out what the AFP expects from you while the case remains active.
Nick Ross,

This letter notifies you that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) has opened a case file that concerns you or your details on record. The file is used to track correspondence, decisions, and any follow-up steps. You should read this email carefully and keep the case reference and assigned officer details below whenever you communicate about this matter.

The AFP is asking for your cooperation so the case can be processed without delay. If you ignore these instructions or unreasonably delay your response, further administrative action may be considered under Australian law and AFP policy.

CASE DETAILS
Action required — The case below is active. Please treat requests from the AFP as time-sensitive and respond in good faith using the reference and officer name provided.
Case reference CIRS-20260825-483
Assigned officer DC Martin Blake
Status Active — under review
Case type Administrative review
Your assigned case officer
This matter is assigned to DC Martin Blake, who is authorised to communicate with you about this file. Always quote CIRS-20260825-483 in the subject line or opening of any related message so your reply can be matched to the correct record. Follow any reasonable directions they give you about timelines, documents, or interviews as part of this process.

What you should do next
To keep the case moving, the AFP expects you to:

• Acknowledge that you have read this notice and understand the reference and officer details above.
• Cooperate with information requests and any reasonable steps needed to complete the review.
• Respond promptly when contacted, and avoid unnecessary delay.
• Maintain confidentiality about the contents of this case unless you are legally required to disclose them.
• Do not obstruct, mislead, or interfere with the AFP’s handling of the file.
  Failure to meet these expectations may result in further administrative steps or escalation within the AFP’s procedures, consistent with Australian law.

Confidentiality — This email may contain sensitive information about an active matter. Do not forward it or discuss its contents with people who are not authorised to receive AFP case information. Misuse of government correspondence can have serious consequences.
Issued under federal authority
Australian Federal Police
Federal law enforcement agency, Commonwealth of Australia

Please retain this message until the case is closed or you are advised otherwise.

Confidentiality & security — This email is for the intended recipient only. If you received it by mistake, delete it and do not share it.

The AFP cannot guarantee that email is error-free, confidential in transit, or free of harmful content. Messages may travel over unsecured networks.

This inbox is not monitored. Do not reply to this address. For this case, contact DC Martin Blake and quote CIRS-20260825-483.

© Commonwealth of Australia — Australian Federal Police. General information: www.afp.gov.au

Now, I don’t sleep well and so was awake at 4am pondering what this might be about. If my passport was involved, then it was mostly used when travelling through airport SmartGates. That’s unlikely to be the source… especially when I recently visited Bali and had to type all of my identity details into an unsecured computer at Bali’s Kuta airport arrival hall to print out a landing card. Many people had their credentials saved so I could easily read them.

However, a more likely explanation was all the booze I’d ordered from Jimmy Brings (now MilkRun) and Uber Eats that required you to handover your driver’s licence. Some delivery drivers used an official app to verify it. Others blatantly seemed to just take a picture and walk away. The same went for some couriers – and I interact a lot with them for work while working from home. So, that was a very likely cause of identity theft.

The vagueness of the call got me joining the dots to validate everything myself – something scammers rely on. Yes – that could have happened. It’s not like I was being told my secret, Nigerian aunt had left me a diamond mine in her will.

So, I prepared to reply to the official email (which hadn’t been dumped in Google’s usually impressive Spam Folder) and noticed that the Reply address wasn’t filled out properly. Very suspicious.

I then looked at the sender details and saw this:

The ‘from: investigations@afp’ is very strange but WTF is tomfodserk.com – the domain it was sent from?

Here’s the website:

Finding out about a site can be done using a whois lookup service.

Here are the results:

It shows that the website is hosted by a company called Hostinger which is based in Lithuania. Nuff said.

At this point I looked-up the original Baw Baw phone number (if you weren’t aware, both phone numbers and email addresses can be easily spoofed (i.e. faked)).

Reverse Australia is your friend here. Here’s what it displays:

This shows three anon people reporting the same police scammer in the past few days:

Answered – the caller was a scammer pretending to be from Australian Federal Police Cyber crime unit. Said I was a victim of a crime. Sent an email to my address while on the phone to ‘verify ‘ the case.

This also happened to me – definitely not the AFP.

Scammer pretending to be police

People posting on that site will be alert to scams, but there will be plenty of people that have been hooked by this elaborate scam that might well pass personal details to cybercriminals.

I’ve recorded the bulk of the call and will post excerpts when edited. It didn’t sound like AI but my ears a stinging with Tinnitus right now and the line was bad. If it was AI, lord help us all as I spent 20 minutes talking to it. If it wasn’t, then a very patient cybercriminal is going to extraordinary lengths to build trust with potential victims in an effort to execute a long-con (where the criminality happens further down the line). That they’re willing to risk the ire of the police themselves, is incredibly brazen.

What have we learned about avoiding scammers?

If someone claims to be the Police (or anyone you don’t know) – don’t trust them. Ask them to provide their name and police station, then verify that station’s phone number before calling it to double check.

If it’s a withheld number, you should be immediately wary. If you’ve got their phone number, search for it on Google and https://www.reverseaustralia.com/ to see if it’s already been flagged as a scammer.

Look to see who your email is actually from in the email’s header information and check with relevant organisation to see if it’s real.

Learn more about scam awareness at the ACCC’s Scamwatch website.

Learn what technology leaders are saying about Scams Awareness Week, here.

Last Updated on August 27, 2026 by Nick Ross