Lawrence police have a warning for local hotels and vacation rental operators: Beware of anyone asking to have packages delivered there and forwarded to them.

After being alerted by Sprint to a scam, detectives found that hotels in Lawrence were being used as unwitting partners by shipping fraudulently obtained phones, according to a Friday news release from the Lawrence Police Department. The scam has resulted in the theft of upwards of $34,000 worth of stolen phones passing through Lawrence in recent weeks, Officer Drew Fennelly said.

Thieves use fraudulent information to order phones and have them shipped to a hotel in the area, according to the police news release. They make reservations at the hotel where phones are being shipped, then call the hotel with an elaborate story about an emergency requiring them to cancel their reservation. They then tell the hotel they were expecting a package, and the thieves send the hotel a shipping label and ask the hotel to forward the package to them.

Once the package has been forwarded on by the hotel, it becomes very difficult to track, police said.

Police suggest that hotel and vacation rental operators who are asked to forward packages instead return them to where they came from or decline delivery.