If you have received a call or text message from +1 347-379-8657, do not engage, do not reply, and do not send any payment. Report it immediately to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), and contact your local police department.
What this number is doing
Unsolicited contact from +1 (347) 379-8657 has been arriving by both voice call and SMS over a sustained period of more than a year. What began as harassment has escalated in recent weeks into explicit death threats against the recipient and members of the recipient’s family, paired with demands for payment in Bitcoin.
The pattern is consistent across every contact:
- Unsolicited inbound calls and text messages from +1 (347) 379-8657.
- Direct, unmasked threats — the callers do not impersonate a government agency, a debt collector, a bank, or any company. They state the threat openly and in their own voice.
- Demands for payment in cryptocurrency, specifically Bitcoin, sent to a wallet address provided by the caller.
- Escalating language over time, now including explicit threats to kill the recipient and the recipient’s family if payment is not made.
This is not a misdial. This is not a robocall. This is a deliberate, targeted extortion attempt, and based on the operational pattern — a U.S. number with a New York City area code, scripted escalation, and Bitcoin payment rails — it is consistent with organized extortion activity rather than the work of a lone individual.
What to do if +1 (347) 379-8657 contacts you
Do not call back. Do not reply. Do not negotiate. Do not pay.
Paying an extortionist does not end the threats — it confirms to them that you are a paying victim, and the demands escalate from there. Every reputable law-enforcement and cybercrime guidance source is unanimous on this point.
Instead, take the following steps immediately:
- Preserve evidence. Take screenshots of every text message with the timestamp visible. Save voicemails. Export your call log showing the date and time of every contact. Do not delete anything — including any replies you may have already sent. Back the evidence up to cloud storage and to a second device.
- Report to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: ic3.gov. IC3 is the primary federal intake point for extortion conducted by phone, SMS, or the internet. Use the word “extortion” in your complaint and quote the threats verbatim. Include any Bitcoin wallet address you were given — wallet addresses are how investigators link victims across a single criminal operation and trace the flow of funds.
- Call the FBI tip line: 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov.
- Contact your local police department and file an in-person report. If you are in New York City, this is your local NYPD precinct; the non-emergency line is 311. If you are in immediate fear for your life or your family’s safety, call 911.
- File a report with the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov.
- Report the number to your mobile carrier so it can be flagged in spam and fraud databases. In the United States, forwarding any spam or extortion text to 7726 (“SPAM”) flags it across the carrier network.
- Tell your family. If threats have been made against them, they need to know not to answer calls from unknown numbers, and to call police on any unfamiliar in-person approach to your home or workplace.
Why public reporting matters
Extortion operations like this one survive because most victims stay silent — out of fear, out of shame, or because they assume nothing will be done. Investigators rely on multiple victims independently reporting the same number, the same script, and the same wallet addresses in order to build a case, link it to other open investigations, and seize criminal funds.
If you have received contact from +1 (347) 379-8657 and have not yet reported it, your report is the single most useful thing you can do — both for yourself and for every other person this operation is targeting. If you have already paid, you are still a victim and you should still report. Reporting does not expose you to any liability. The FBI and FTC treat extortion victims as victims, not as suspects.
What to do next?
- Number to avoid: +1 (347) 379-8657
- Tactics observed: Unsolicited calls and SMS, explicit death threats against the recipient and family, demands for payment in Bitcoin.
- Do: Preserve evidence. Report to ic3.gov, call 1-800-CALL-FBI, file with local police (911 if in immediate danger), file with the FTC, and forward any SMS to 7726.
- Do not: Reply, call back, negotiate, or pay.
If this post reached you because you searched the number after receiving a call or message, please take five minutes to file a complaint at ic3.gov today. That single action is what shuts these operations down.
