Donations go missing along with the kettle
A Salvation Army representative went to the Mount Pleasant Police Headquarters lobby and said a Christmas kettle worker, collecting donations outside of Walmart, had stolen the kettle.
He said the man had been employed through a temporary agency and had been present for a meeting the prior morning to review the details of the job. He said after the meeting the man received a kettle and went to the store to begin collections around 11 a.m. The representative added that a Salvation Army bus driver had seen the man leave at about 3 p.m.
The representative said he first thought there was confusion as to how long the man was supposed to work, however after speaking to the temp agency he discovered he had told the agency he never went to work.
Salvation Army decided it wanted to press charges and were providing video of the temp worker receiving the kettle, while the police were going to follow up by obtaining security footage from Walmart. It was unclear as to how much money was in the kettle.
Threatening scam
Police responded to a call at a local business about an employee receiving harassment by phone and text. The victim said someone called “Emilio Guzman” who said he was the owner of a “dating house” sent him a screen shot of his personal information and a list of his family members.
Another text by the same person claimed the victim “talked to some of his girls” and took “private photos” and demanded $1,500 to “get out of trouble with me.” The victim said he received another call from that same number but did not answer it.
Then he received text messages with images of dead people, human heads and a group of men in a car holding guns stating “I have an address for you and your whole family, you pay me the fine” and “some of my 15 men are one block from your address.”
The victim received another call and answered it and the person on the phone said “I have your address” and then recited the victim’s social security number. The victim hung up and called the police. He told the police the allegations by the man on the phone were false and he was worried about all the personal information the caller had.
The victim was advised to block the number and file a report in his local neighborhood. Police had no luck contacting the suspect by phone. When they followed up with the victim he said he had conducted some online research and said it was a scam that had been reported in other areas.
