Orleans Detective Andrew McLaughlin has scored some rare victories fighting crimes involving telephone and computer scams.
In one case, a woman wired thousands of dollars to her nephew in a foreign country. In another case, he tracked down a scammer who rented a non-existent beach house to an unsuspecting couple..
In the first case, the nephew was an imposter who tried to use family loyalty to wrest money from a concerned aunt. In the second case, a couple fell for an amazing deal during the height of summer. The scammer used details from a vacation rental website and posted it to Craigslist.