Metro Birmingham, Ala. - *Video of the suspects will be added here by Thursday morning.*

Crime Stoppers is ready to pay cash if your anonymous tip leads to the arrest of suspects in a major scam that is targeting elderly women around the Birmingham area.

Deputies say three men are posing as FBI (web) agents and preying on older victims, some of whom may suffer from dementia.

The men are dressed well.  They look official.  One apparently had a badge of some sort.

But they are con men.  They convince the victims that the cash in the victims' bank accounts could be connected to drug money.  The men explain that they need to "test" the money to help them solve the drug case.

The victims, wanting to comply with people they believe are lawmen, then retrieve cash from their bank accounts.  And the men then take the money and flee as fast as they can, driving away with the hard-earned savings of the elderly victims who thought they were doing the right thing.

Victims have been targeted in Birmingham, Ensley, and Brighton.  The suspects have also been seen in Forestdale.

"The police are not going to come to your house and request money from you," Jefferson County Lieutenant Bill Musgrove warned.  "If you have any doubt about the official capacity a person who is there, you look up in the phone book the department they work for, and you make a phone call and verify it."

Musgrove added not to trust the person at the door to use his or her cell phone to call their "boss" for you.  If they do so, they are probably just calling a friend nearby who will then pretend to be the person's boss.

"This is a very well-polished scheme," Musgrove added.  "But by identifying them, we can put them in jail, and they won't be able to strike again."

If you recognize the suspects from the video attached to this article, call Crime Stoppers now at (205) 254-7777.  Also, encrypted tips can be submitted online by logging onto www.birminghamcrimestoppers.org and clicking on the "submit an online tip" link.

Callers and online tipsters are never asked for their names.  Instead, each tipster receives a private code number.  If the tipster's information is the first to lead to an arrest, the tipster then uses the private code number to claim a cash reward.

Crime Stoppers is a partnership between local law enforcement, the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce and ABC 33/40.  Together, our goal is to make our community a safer place to live and work.

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