AARP’s Guardian Award Honors Law Enforcement Fraud Fighters

Hogan recalls one local woman who was manipulated into investing cryptocurrency by a criminal posing as a romantic partner. Hogan traced the transactions through multiple offshore accounts and recovered $30,000 of the $1 million that was stolen. “That's a win for us, but it's not the person being made whole,” Hogan says.

Last year, victims in Connecticut lost more than $90 million to crypto scams, according to FBI statistics. “A big number for a small state,” says Hogan. He and his partner have handled about 150 cases involving cryptocurrency scams, tracing and recovering an average of $7 million of victims’ money over the past four years.

Hogan played a key role in suggesting language for Connecticut's 2023 crypto kiosk law and regularly partners with AARP to hold fraud information sessions with older adults. “Matt has really driven home the dangers of crypto in scams,” says Nora Duncan, state director of AARP’s Connecticut office. “He literally answers in a heartbeat if we have a question regarding fraud or a victim.” 

Fellow officers from around the country also rely on Hogan, asking for advice on how to trace and recover money, and as well as how to talk to scam victims.

“You can't come at them hard,” he says. “Victims are ashamed.”

That compassionate touch is important, says Amy Nofziger, senior director of victim support at the AARP Fraud Watch Network, who also attended the awards ceremony. “What I hear from a lot of victims is that it’s really the emotional losses and their loss of faith in themselves that is so devastating.”

Historic ban on cryptocurrency kiosks

Crypto kiosk scams have exploded in recent years. Until 2022, VanCleave says, about half of his work on scams was with people who had lost a few thousand dollars to gift card scams. But by 2025, he says, Evansville fraud victims were losing significantly more — an average of $11,000 each to crypto kiosk scams.

He and other law enforcement officials would follow a victim’s transactions, trying to “freeze it and seize it before the scammers would get the money. But we were coming up short every single time,” VanCleave says. “We realized that it really needed to be stopped on the front end rather than the back end.”

At first, VanCleave approached companies that had kiosks in their stores, hoping they would remove the machines, but they were reluctant. He then contacted state representatives to tell them about the impact the machines were having on Indiana residents. “It kind of fell on deaf ears,” VanCleave says. When AARP got involved, things changed, he says. “AARP was really a game changer in seeing this legislation through.”

That is the kind of consumer protection AARP advocates for.

Ambre Marr, legislative director for AARP Indiana, praised VanCleave’s help in getting legislators to understand what the stakes were for their constituents.

His testimony in front of the Indiana state Senate was so powerful that senators drafted an outright statewide ban on the machines, instead of just putting limits in place, Marr says. 

VanCleave, in turn, says AARP was an essential partner in getting the ban passed. His advice for other members of law enforcement in other states concerned about the impact of crypto kiosks: “Talk to AARP. I don't know that it would have happened without them."

Immediately after the awards were presented, Hogan was approached by Rose Dawson, an AARP volunteer asking for help. Scammers had stolen the air miles she’d been saving. Dawson said she changed her password, but scammers were still accessing her account. Hogan, who faced a long drive back to Connecticut that night, stopped, listened carefully and offered advice.