Scammers are everywhere. I don't know why people seem to exaggerate stories about scamming when they hear crypto currencies are involved. I mean they start acting like scams like those would not have happened if crypto currencies didn't exist. People scam using fiat money too. In fact, I think most of the scams are done using fiat currency.
I guess the police were able to get to that scammer because he used crypto currencies (his transactions became traceable). If he has used fiat, he probably would have escaped without any issue.