GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A young man posing as a wealthy transfer student has been banned from all Gwinnett County schools after buying luxury items for teenagers and sneaking into a high school, officials said.
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The unidentified man convinced multiple students at Seckinger High School that he was a new student from Korea before meeting them at the Mall of Georgia, where he purchased expensive perfumes and paid for their food.
“He came, he met them at the mall and came and purchased all four of them luxury perfumes and colognes, paid for all of their food, offered to give them money,” said Lydia Clark, whose daughter encountered the man over the weekend.
Clark says she didn’t learn until later that the “new student” her daughter told her about was someone over the age of 18 who just had a run-in with law enforcement at the campus.
“If this person is this manipulative and able to convince all of these kids with very viable information, there’s no telling what else he’s capable of convincing them of,” Clark told Channel 2 Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Matt Johnson.
Seckinger school officials discovered the man on campus Friday after he was let in through a side door by a student he had convinced of his story. School resource officers issued him a criminal trespass warning, banning him from all Gwinnett County Schools property.
Clark says the most unnerving aspect of the situation is not knowing the motives behind the behavior.
“It’s scary, and it feels like there might be some kind of triangle of people that are trying to do this,” she said. “Because if he’s got a personal driver, and if he has these elaborate stories of these students that are at these schools and photos of them, it just feels very weird.”
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Principal Jimmy Fisher sent a letter to parents on Tuesday, alerting them to the situation and urging families to discuss online safety with their children.
“School Resource Officers are actively investigating the situation and are working closely with other local law enforcement agencies to ensure the safety of all our students,” Fisher wrote.
Authorities say the man has been contacting students on social media for months, building relationships by sharing information about mutual friends and claiming to be extremely wealthy.
Clark warns other parents to be more vigilant about their teenagers’ online activities.
“This is a wake-up call for a lot of parents to really pay attention to what your teenagers are doing and the names that they’re saying when they’re going to hang out with people,” she said.
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Hall County schools have also encountered the young man.
Hall County Schools Director of Communications Stan Lewis sent the following statement to Channel 2 Action News:
An individual matching the description of the male who was issued a criminal trespass warning by officials at Seckinger High School tried to enroll at one of our high schools yesterday. When school officials noted he did not have the proper documentation and that he was not the appropriate age, he was directed by the principal to go elsewhere.
Local Law enforcement and our school SROs have been notified. All of our schools been advised to keep watch for this individual and to contact law enforcement immediately should he show up on any of our campuses.
Additionally, we have reached out to all families in the district and encouraged parents to speak to their students about the dangers of communicating with unknown individuals online. They were asked to remind students to report any suspicious activity to a trusted adult. Additionally, anyone can report a concern to our anonymous tip line on the district web page.
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