The Po­lice Ser­vice is urg­ing the pub­lic to be wary of scams be­ing per­pe­trat­ed on so­cial me­dia plat­forms such as Face­book, fol­low­ing the ar­rest of a 28-year-old man by the Ari­ma Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment (CID), yes­ter­day, for al­leged­ly ob­tain­ing mon­ey in the sum of $35,000 by false pre­tence.

“Cit­i­zens are re­mind­ed to make the rel­e­vant own­er­ship checks be­fore pur­chas­ing land or hous­es from ven­dors on Face­book,” the TTPS stat­ed in a news re­lease is­sued to­day.

It al­so is ad­vis­ing any­one who is a vic­tim of a so­cial me­dia scam to make a re­port to the near­est po­lice sta­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cial po­lice re­ports, a 47-year-old vic­tim re­port­ed to po­lice that in No­vem­ber 2022, he saw an ad­ver­tise­ment on Face­book for the sale of prop­er­ty at Waller­field, Ari­ma. The vic­tim claimed that on No­vem­ber 16, 2022, he met with a man and pur­chased the prop­er­ty for the sum of $35,000.

The vic­tim told po­lice that the right­ful own­er of the prop­er­ty sub­se­quent­ly ap­proached him with doc­u­men­ta­tion prov­ing his own­er­ship, and said that he [the own­er] nev­er gave any­one per­mis­sion to sell or con­duct busi­ness on his be­half for his prop­er­ty.

A re­port was made to the Ari­ma CID and an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed on Thurs­day, De­cem­ber 8, be­tween 3 pm and 6 pm.

The Po­lice Ser­vice says the ex­er­cise re­sult­ed in of­fi­cers ar­rest­ing a 28-year-old Waller­field man in con­nec­tion with the mat­ter.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.