You can’t believe everything you see on the internet. One scam circulating in popular Maricopa Facebook groups recently is proof of just that.

A Facebook user named Brittney Scott shared two photos of a young boy with a bruised and swollen face in the “Maricopa AZ Small Business” group, claiming he was found an hour ago and was at the police station. The post urged people to share to help find his family.

This post was designed to flood feeds, driving massive shares. The same account shared disturbing photos of bloodied toddlers in Facebook groups using #ftmyers, and also posted about lost jewelry, missing kids, bogus rental home listings, and fake burglaries.

One telling sign the account is fake is the use of the British English term “gutted,” meaning disappointed. This suggests the scammer is overseas.

On July 24, the Brittney Scott account posted photos of a teenage girl named Leila Gutierrez, claiming she was last seen in Maricopa and urging people to flood their feeds. This post has been shared in multiple states including Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Ohio.

Gutierrez is a real person who went missing in 2021 in West Allis, Wisconsin, and was found safely. The same photos were shared by West Allis PD on their X account, formerly known as Twitter.

Scott turns off comments on these posts to prevent locals from calling out the scam, pushing people to only share them. The goal is to trick people into spreading the posts in large numbers, which the scammer later edits to include Bitcoin scams or phishing links.

To avoid falling for such scams, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) advises checking the source of the information. Real missing person posters should come from NCMEC, an official law enforcement agency, or another credible news source.

Red flags include misspellings, improperly used words, and errors in syntax. Additionally, genuine posts will ask you to take appropriate actions and offer clear steps on how to do so.

Effective missing person posters should include the date of disappearance, the location, and the law enforcement agency handling the case, with its phone number or NCMEC’s 24/7 hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.