A Miami man has been arrested in a "grandparents scam" that conned an elderly couple out of thousands of dollars, and police say he's linked to multiple fraud incidents in Florida and elsewhere.
Agustin Garcia-Marsan, 38, was arrested Monday on charges including organized scheme to defraud, theft from elderly, fraudulent use of identification information, communications fraud, and unlawful use of a communications device, Miami-Dade jail records showed.
The investigation into Garcia-Marsan began earlier this month when the victims, 87 and 82, received a call from someone pretending to be their grandson, saying he'd been in a car accident, an arrest report said.
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The person said he was being arrested because he was texting and driving, and told the grandparents to call an attorney to help him bail out of jail.
The grandfather called the number on July 3 and the "attorney" told him he needed to come up with $18,500 cash, saying he needed the cash today since the next day was July 4 and courts would be closed, which would cause authorities to keep the grandson in jail longer, the report said.
"These elderly victims, they don’t have means of checking to see where their family members are, they don’t have 'Find My Friends' applications," said Miami-Dade Police Detective Brandon Cañizares. "Sometimes they will call their family member and they don’t answer, so they are very nervous they’re under stress."
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The grandfather came up with the cash and was told that a courier was on the way to pick it up, and 10 minutes later a Lyft driver arrived to pick up the package.
"In this case, this was a ride share driver who had no idea — he was just picking up a package and just delivering, he basically had no idea what was going on or what was inside this package," Cañizares said.
The grandfather later called his grandson, who told him he was okay and had never been in a car accident, and the grandfather realized he'd been scammed and called police, the report said.
Surveillance footage showed the Lyft driver later met a man at a shopping plaza to deliver the package, and the Lyft driver identified that man as Garcia-Marsan, the report said.
Garcia-Marsan has been linked to multiple fraud incidents throughout Florida and North Carolina using the same method involving ride shares and meeting drivers at shopping plazas, the report said.
Investigators were able to get details from Lyft and found that Garcia-Marsan used accounts with fake names, fake emails and burner phone numbers, but used his Florida driver's license, a photo of himself and a credit card that came back to his address, the report said.
Garcia-Marsan was found on Monday and arrested before he was booked into jail. Attorney information wasn't available.
Authorities say the "grandparent scam" has become a popular fraud method in recent years.
The suspects do their homework in researching names, family ties and other information using social media and dating sites. They then use the info to target elderly victims, using the names of real attorneys in case the victims look them up.
Just last month, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced the arrest of six people with ties to Miami-Dade in a statewide "grandparent scam" ring that stole around $250,000 from seniors.
