Report: Caller convinces employee to break door, take money from safe

A juvenile employee at a local motel may have been the unwitting victim of a hoax caller posing as the juvenile’s manager according to a Newport Police Department incident report.

According to the report filed by Officer Andy Oliver on Friday, April 19, he was dispatched to Quality Inn where the manager told him an employee had broken a door and broke into the safe.

Oliver then reports speaking to the employee, a 17-year-old juvenile, who said a male called the hotel and claimed to be the manager, who said there was a FedEx delivery scheduled and needed to provide money for it. The employee further stated, per the report, that the caller instructed the employee to use a fire extinguisher to break the door to the manager’s office to gain access. The caller then allegedly told the employee to break open the safe.

The employee reports taking the money from the safe and the register as well as some of their own personal money. The employee then went next door to Kenjo’s and sent the money to the caller as instructed.

Management was unsure of the exact amount of the money taken, but estimated it to be around $3,000 according to the report.

No arrests were made at the time of the filing of the report.