Hawaii Police Host Safety Event to Help Protect Senior Residents

When scammers began calling Big Island kupuna using spoofed Hawaiʻi Police Department phone numbers and the names of real officers, they were counting on one thing: that elderly residents would trust an authoritative voice without question. The Puna Community Policing Section spent Thursday morning working to change that.

Hawaiʻi Police Department's Puna Community Policing Section held its first-ever Puna Kūpuna Watch meeting Thursday, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Pāhoa Senior Center, 15-3016 Kauhale Street, in Pāhoa. The free monthly outreach program is designed to promote safety awareness, strengthen communication between police and residents, and support efforts to keep neighborhoods safe, particularly for seniors. During these meetings, officers share crime and traffic trends, the importance of reporting elder abuse, and ways to recognize and prevent financial and internet-related crimes.

The threat driving that curriculum is documented and local. Scammers posing as Hawaii Police Department officers have been targeting kupuna on the Big Island, and their most recent known target was a 75-year-old man in Kona who was pressured to send thousands of dollars. The scammers call with altered caller ID numbers displaying Hawaiʻi Police Department phone numbers, posing as officers and telling victims they have outstanding warrants that must be paid right away. Hawaiʻi Police make one fact clear: while officers have called individuals with outstanding warrants as a courtesy, they will never ask for payment of any kind over the phone, nor ask for payment to be made at a vendor.

Hawaii kupuna over the age of 60 filed 647 internet crime complaints last year and lost $18,851,052, an increase from 453 complaints filed by residents age 60 and over in 2023. Nationally, the FBI reported over $4.88 billion in losses from elder fraud in 2024, across more than 147,000 complaints. Kona Community Policing Section Sergeant Wyattlane Nahale, who helped build the model Puna is now replicating, has said plainly who absorbs the most risk: "Our kupuna are trusting people, and they believe a lot of things that are told to them over the phone."

Kūpuna Watch launched in Kona in November 2025 and has been very well received by the community, with dozens of seniors attending since the program's inception. Puna is the first district outside Kona to receive its own chapter of the program.

Future monthly Puna Kūpuna Watch meetings will be held on the second Thursday of the month at various locations throughout Puna. Families wanting to bring an elderly parent or grandparent, or anyone looking to report a suspicious call or confirm the next meeting location, can contact Officer Eddie Cardines at ecardines@hawaiipolice.gov or call the Pāhoa Police Station at (808) 965-2716.

Worth posting to any neighborhood group chat in Puna: real Hawaiʻi Police officers do not call demanding payment for outstanding warrants, do not request gift cards or wire transfers, and do not ask for personal information over the phone. Scammers have been known to spoof legitimate police station phone numbers and use the names of actual officers to add false credibility to their calls. A caller ID showing an HPD number is not proof of anything. Hang up and call the Pāhoa station directly.