A suspicious smell

A dispatch for University Police was made around 10:20 p.m. on Sept. 27 to report to Murray Hall for a suspected drug case. The officer was advised that he would be meeting with the complainant in the Hall Directors Office.

The complainant was a Resident Assistant in Murray that stated he smelled the odor of marijuana coming from a room on the second floor. The RA said that he had notified another RA to determine the smell as well, according to the police report.

When the officers went to check out the smell they could detect the odor, right away in the hallway. They were able to tell exactly what room the odor was coming from by checking the door frames of surrounding rooms.

The officer knocked on the door and one lone occupant answered the door. She said she lived in the room and gave the officers consent to enter the room, according to the police report.  After they identified themselves and explained the reason for their coming, the girl said that she had smelled marijuana earlier in the night when she walked through a group of people watching the blood moon.

The girl gave the officers consent to search her belongings and nothing was found.

You’ve been hacked

At 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 26 a possible theft by fraud case was reason to dispatch University Police.

The complainant was waiting outside of the main entrance to the Crest Wellness Center. He advised the officer that he was shopping for USB flash drives on Amazon’s website last Thursday when he was redirected from Amazon’s website to a different screen according to the police report.

The boys’ internet browser screen then went completely blue and an error message appeared saying, “your security has been breached, please contact the number provided.” He grew concerned and dialed the number provided in the pop-up.

According to the police report, a female with an Indian accent answered the phone and began asking for his personal information.  He told the woman that he was concerned his computer had been hacked so he provided the female with his personal identifying information. He was then redirected to a different male subject who also had an Indian accent.

The male redirected the boy to a “technician.”  He was instructed to enter a specific six digit code into an unknown website and provide an E-signature that would allow the technician access to his computer by using his mouse.

The boy was advised to select the $200 Virus Removal option by the technician in order to fix the problem on his computer according to the police report. He agreed and provided the technician with his card information.

After the technician completed the work on his computer, he immediately contacted his bank and cancelled his card in fear of being hacked. According to the report, no money had been taken out of his bank account and he had not been charged for the virus removal.

The victim said he decided to report the information a few days later because he had been receiving ongoing calls from an unknown individual associated with the “hacking” business. He said the business was called something along the lines of “InfoTech’s.” He also provided police with the phone numbers associated with the calls he received.

The boy decided to bring his laptop to ResCom to have it cleaned.

He was unable to provide any specific information about the exact websites he was redirected to or the names of the individuals he spoke with according to the police report.