A Kailua-Kona woman handed over her entire life savings to a caller posing as a federal officer, convinced she would face criminal charges unless she paid up. Within days, Hawaii Police Department Officer Eli-Dominic Cayetano had tracked the $60,000 in cash through a UPS shipment bound for the mainland and gotten every dollar of it back to her.
A Frantic Call and a Familiar Language
According to police, the scam began on November 25, 2025, when a caller falsely told the woman she was under investigation for money laundering and trafficking and instructed her to withdraw her savings and mail cash to designated addresses to avoid criminal charges, as reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The woman withdrew $60,000 from her bank and sent the cash via UPS, only realizing she had been scammed after contacting police dispatch. Cayetano built rapport with the frightened victim by speaking Ilocano, her native Filipino language, helping calm her panic enough to piece together what had happened.
From there, the station's report notes, Cayetano obtained the package's tracking information and discovered it had already reached Oahu and was awaiting transfer to the mainland. He arranged with UPS for the package's return to the UPS Store in Kona, and the woman recovered the entire $60,000. Hawaii Police Department Chief Reed Mahuna told the Hawaii County Police Commission about Cayetano's actions at its monthly meeting in Hilo, saying the officer quickly recovered the kupuna's life savings and that the money represented all the money the woman had in her life, per the same account.
Officer of the Month and Officer of the Year, Back to Back
The recovery effort earned Cayetano the Kona Crime Prevention Committee's October Officer of the Month honor, awarded for helping the senior recover her life savings. It came within weeks of the committee naming him its 2026 Officer of the Year, after he de-escalated a suicidal crisis on November 12, 2025, in Kona that led to the discovery and seizure of multiple unregistered AR-style rifles, loaded magazines, and ammunition, according to the Hawaii Police Department. Mahuna said Cayetano showed professionalism, sound judgment, and recognized a public-safety concern during that welfare check, per the Star-Advertiser's report.
A seven-year Hawaii Police veteran who recently transferred from the Kona Patrol Division to the Kona Community Policing Section, Cayetano has now been named KCPC Officer of the Month seven times, including in May 2026. Sergeant Wyattlane Nahale of the Kona Community Policing Section said Cayetano does great work and is hardworking, community-minded, honest, fair, dependable, and a genuine person, the newspaper reported. The committee's selection process has supervisors across West Hawaii police districts nominate officers monthly, with its board of directors choosing a monthly honoree who becomes eligible for the annual Officer of the Year award presented every September, according to Big Island Now.
A Track Record of Patient Detective Work
Cayetano's case files stretch back well before this scam recovery. In 2024, he was recognized as KCPC Officer of the Month after investigating a March 15, 2024, Kailua-Kona residential burglary, using cell phone tracking data and store video surveillance to identify and arrest a suspect attempting to sell stolen cell phones at a big-box kiosk, as detailed by Big Island Video News. That case, like the recent scam intervention, hinged on tracing a trail of data and objects before they vanished for good.
A Statewide Surge in Scams Targeting Seniors
The Kona case lands amid a dramatic spike in fraud targeting Hawaii's kupuna. Data from the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center released in 2026 showed elder fraud losses in Hawaii nearly tripled from $18.85 million in 2024 to $55 million in 2025, a 194% surge across 917 reported senior victims statewide, according to HCSK Senior Care. Nationally, the Federal Trade Commission has reported that impersonation scams — where fraudsters pose as government officials, police officers, or trusted companies — are the most common fraud type reported, contributing to $16 billion in consumer losses in 2025, per a notice in the Federal Register.
Hawaii law treats these crimes seriously. Under Hawaii Revised Statutes § 346-222 and § 485A-801, state law defines elder financial exploitation as the wrongful taking, withholding, or appropriation of money or property from someone 62 or older through deception, intimidation, or undue influence, according to Justia Law. The state's Kupuna Protection Law, Act 147, signed in July 2021, created enhanced criminal penalties for offenses including felony theft, burglary, and bodily injury committed against people 60 and older, a provision Hoodline previously reported in a separate Kailua kupuna assault case.
The Kona recovery also echoes a recent Oahu case: in Kaneohe, an international fraudster pleaded guilty in October 2026 to conspiracy after posing as a U.S. Marshal to deceive an 80-year-old woman into liquidating her IRA and surrendering $137,458 in gold bars, before federal agents staged a sting to catch the courier, as Hoodline detailed in its report on the Kaneohe grandmother gold scam. Hawaii County procedures also call for officers responding to elder financial exploitation reports to notify the Department of Human Services Adult Protective Services division, which operates a dedicated West Hawaii intake unit in Kona, according to the Legal Navigator Hawaii resource guide.
