Playing Cops: Criminals Pretending To Be Police Is a National Problem

“You don’t know who to trust nowadays,” local resident Danny Taylor told a TV reporter. 

The Bed-Stuy deli heist is part of an unusual and little-known crime wave in New York City. In 2025, 1,474 suspects were arrested for impersonating a cop or other public servant, a 50% increase from the prior year, according to New York Police Department data. Brooklyn has seen the most officer impersonation crimes in a trend that stretches across the five boroughs. 

Law enforcement impersonators are a national problem. In November, the FBI issued a warning about criminals posing as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after a slew of robberies, kidnappings, and sexual assaults across the country. In January 2026, the FBI’s Atlanta office sent out a warning describing how agents have witnessed a nationwide trend of scammers, potentially of foreign origin, who pose as law enforcement and claim the victim is a suspect in a fraud investigation. “Fraudsters will go to great lengths to steal money from people who, in this case, believe they are dutifully complying with lawful requests by law enforcement or prosecutors," U.S. Attorney William R. Keyes said in a press release issued with the warning. 

The Federal Trade Commission reports that imposter scams in which thieves pretend to represent government agencies are a growing form of fraud in the United States. During 2025, the FTC reported $3.5 billion in losses from some 1 million imposter scams, often involving “individuals impersonating entities such as your bank’s fraud department, the government, relatives in distress, well-known businesses and technical support experts.”

While such scams have an ancient lineage, the growing number of criminals using ever-more elaborate methods to pretend to be law enforcement agents presents a special problem.  

Flashing Lights & Sirens

In addition to fake uniforms or badges, impersonators equip their personal vehicles with police lights, scanners, and sometimes sirens. Flashing lights and high-pitched sirens, combined with verbal threats from the criminals, create an illusion of power that can be strong enough to overwhelm victims. 

On March 5, 2026, in Osceola, Florida, a 59-year-old man blocked a young driver in traffic before approaching the vehicle and claiming he was an officer. His SUV was equipped with blue lights and a siren; however, his inability to provide a second officer as requested by the victim caused him to retreat. He was later caught and charged. 

Two days later, officials with the Sunriver Police Department in Deschutes County, Oregon, warned residents of a man attempting to impersonate their officers over the phone in order to collect sensitive information like Social Security numbers and banking information. 

In some cases, law enforcement agents themselves are the impostors. According to a criminal complaint, while chatting online with a woman last year, NYPD Sergeant Atickul Islam used the alias James W. Anderson and said he worked for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s New York Field Office. When the woman rejected his romantic advances, he threatened to deport her and her entire family. Islam was later arrested, stripped of his police credentials, and released on bond after pleading not guilty. When asked by a judge why he pretended to be an ICE agent, Islam chose not to respond. 

Mary Dodge, criminal justice professor at the University of Colorado Denver, published a seminal study on the impersonation phenomenon in 2012. She found that impersonators often target vulnerable groups, like minors, the elderly, the disabled, and new immigrants who are less likely to resist or distinguish between what’s real and fake. 

Targeting the Vulnerable & Gullible

Immigrants are less familiar with standard U.S. law enforcement practices and may not speak English, making them easier targets. Fake cops sometimes play on their anxieties during today’s immigration crackdown by threatening to send migrants back to their home country to gain their compliance. 

Criminals pretending to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have few obstacles in their way. Under Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations, ICE agents, when making an arrest, must identify themselves as immigration officers. However, no further proof is needed, such as a badge or a full name, which creates the perfect conditions for ICE impersonators to fake their occupations. 

“How easy is it to impersonate an ICE officer right now?” Dodge asked. “You don’t even need a badge. You can put on some camo and some gear, and you’re good to go.”

Impersonators have even infiltrated college campuses, taking advantage of gullible students. Last year at Temple University in Philadelphia, two students and another individual disturbed a dessert shop by identifying themselves as ICE agents. One of the two students, 22-year-old Aidan Steigelmann, was suspended. 

The Tajuken Deli robbers were able to carry out their crimes effectively in part because they used fake police gear to catch their victims by surprise. They drove an unmarked black van similar to that used by police, a common practice among impersonators. 

Much of this equipment, including retired police vehicles, is easily available online through sites like curtisblueline.com and GSAfleet.gov, where buyers can purchase these vehicles, gun holsters, and, in some places, even bulletproof vests, without verifying that they are law enforcement. 

Jack Cole, a retired New Jersey State Police detective, has personally dealt with police impersonators throughout his 26-year career in narcotics and undercover operations. “Every person that I ever came across that was impersonating a police officer was doing it by driving a car,” said Cole. Cole said the perpetrators are almost exclusively male. Dodge noted that victims are typically female.

Tianna Clark was one of these victims. Clark is a Hyundai sales consultant in her early thirties from Georgia. While driving to work one morning in early 2025, Clark found herself stuck behind a driver moving slowly in the fast lane. After a few moments of waiting, she accelerated in frustration around the driver’s car, which had tinted windows. “It was kind of like a cop car, but it wasn’t a cop car,” said Clark.

The driver rode her tail while she continued at high speeds in an attempt to evade him. “He was right up on me like how a cop pulls right up on you real quick before they pull you over,” said Clark. The driver swerved into the other lane beside her, rolled down the window, and shouted that Clark was “lucky” he was an off-duty police officer – otherwise she’d be in jail. 

The driver was not an off-duty police officer. Although Clark tried to brush the incident off, she was abruptly reminded of it when she saw the same face who had threatened her in an article describing his arrest after threatening other young women using the same impersonation tactics. “Honestly, I felt very uncomfortable and uneasy for at least a few weeks,” said Clark, who bought a firearm afterward for protection. “To this day, I’m skeptical if somebody rolls up on me.”

The experiences of Clark and others who have had run-ins with fake cops are contributing to growing distrust of law enforcement, undermining its authority. A 2023 study by Dodge and her University of Colorado colleague Shahla Mohammed Alghareeb noted, “Although these crimes might be seen as mere pranks in the eyes of individuals in power, they might spread rumors and false news that eventually negatively affect the public’s perception.” The authors found that “this type of case may lead to tensions in areas where agents of actual power are put in threatening situations.”

In Atlanta this February, a homeowner shot at an intruder who claimed to be police as he attempted to kick down his front door. The homeowner didn’t trust his claims and shot through the door, sending 22-year-old impersonator Jaron Jordan to the hospital with gunshot wounds. Jordan was charged with impersonation of a police officer. 

A homeowner in Midland, Texas, shot and killed a uniformed officer because he thought the cop was an intruder. At 1:30 a.m., Officer Nathan Heidelberg responded to a house after a panic alarm had rung out. The door was slightly ajar, and as Heidelberg walked in, he shone his flashlight into the hallway and announced in a strong voice that he was a police officer; he was immediately shot. 

Impersonating a police officer is a felony in every state except California, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota, where it’s a misdemeanor for a first offense. A felony conviction can result in a prison sentence of about five years in most states, and can be increased if the crime was committed alongside more serious offenses such as kidnapping.

Strengthening Penalities

Police departments, which fully understand the powers that come with wearing a uniform and badge, as well as the danger to the public posed by the growing number of impersonators, are advocating for stronger, stiffer penalties. State legislators across the country have introduced new bills and laws to address the growing problem.

Minnesota is now considering a bill to increase the penalty for police impersonation up to five years and a $10,000 fine for a first offense, and up to 10 years and a $20,000 fine for repeat offenders. The legislation was introduced after the murder of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman by Vance Boelter, who rolled up to the Hortman home in a black SUV equipped with police lights in the early morning hours of June 14, 2025, before shooting them both dead when they opened the door. 

In New York state, a proposed law would elevate the penalty of an underlying crime if the suspect was simultaneously impersonating an officer, turning some misdemeanors, for example, into felonies.

California’s new “No Vigilantes Act” now “requires non-uniformed law enforcement officers operating in California to display visible identification, including their agency and either a name or badge number, while performing their enforcement duties.” 

After observing that impersonators commonly block or alter their license plates to avoid arrest, Florida passed a law last year that upgrades the charge of tampering with license plates and using red and blue flashing lights to a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

In New York City, where bodegas are frequent targets of robberies, the Tajuken Deli incident prompted the United Bodegas of America to offer a $5,000 reward for any information about the police impostors. The city spent $1.6 million shortly after the robbery to put panic buttons in hundreds of bodegas in high-crime areas. 

“These cowards dressed like our heroes – NYPD officers – to rob, terrorize and traumatize innocent people,” said UBA President Radhamés Rodríguez in an interview with CBS News.