Authorities in several U.S. states issued fresh warnings on 25 June about a surge in text, email and phone schemes that impersonate government agencies, with investigators saying the latest wave is increasingly sophisticated and often powered by artificial-intelligence tools. In Washington, the State Department of Transportation and the Department of Licensing said fraudulent messages purporting to come from a fictitious “Seattle Department of Motor Vehicles” threaten fines for unpaid tolls. Officials noted similar “smishing” texts have circulated nationwide since March, prompting an earlier FBI advisory. King County prosecutors reported that 46 residents—primarily older adults—have lost a combined $7 million since early 2024 in so-called “courier scams.” Victims were persuaded to withdraw large sums of cash or buy gold for an alleged government investigation, then hand the assets to a courier; the largest known loss reached $870,000. Pennsylvania’s governor’s office and multiple state agencies are cautioning seniors about a separate inheritance-email scam that requests up-front fees to claim a fabricated foreign estate. In Florida, Attorney General James Uthmeier said more than 4,000 fraudulent websites linked to AI-generated texts demanding immediate SunPass toll payments have been taken down this year. Similar alerts came from the Better Business Bureau of South Texas, the Texas and Indiana departments of motor vehicles and the San Francisco Police Department, which reported caller-ID spoofing of its main number. Cyber-security experts advise recipients to avoid clicking unsolicited links, ignore unfamiliar callers and report incidents to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.