Some report impostor animal control officers stealing pets

YORK COUNTY, S.C.

York County sheriff's deputies are investigating reports that someone has been stealing pets in the western part of the county, possibly impersonating animal control officers.

On Wednesday, the Sheriff's Department could not provide Channel 9 with incident reports where people claimed that fake animal control officers were taking animals.

However, several did report that a scratched up, white Ford F-150 was the suspect vehicle, and calls into crime stoppers are now being investigated.

Sheena Branch owns several dogs at her rural home outside York. Last September her mother Debbie Bradley was home when two men in a white F-150 pulled up in the yard.

"They came by wanting to know something about paving the driveway, and I said they'd have to come back later," Bradley said.

She said the men seemed suspicious, and didn't immediately leave after she told them to. Later that same day they noticed their Yorkie named B.J. was missing.

"He went missing, and he never came back." Branch said. "He was our family animal, now we don't have him anymore."

It wasn't until this week when crime stoppers of York County put out a warning online about someone taking pets and claiming to be animal control that Branch thought it could be the same thing that happened to her.

"The truck was the same. A white truck, and I hate that this could be happening to other people," she said. "I talked to the officer and he said the details I had given him were very similar to the other details that they had received."

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Some report impostor animal control officers stealing pets