A man in Las Vegas is accused of posing as a hotel and casino owner and convincing an employee to fork over more than $1million in payments she believed were going toward fire safety equipment.
In a move that puts George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and the rest of the Ocean’s 11 crew to shame, 23-year-old Erik Gutierrez simply dressed as a middle-aged casino owner and asked for a f*ck ton of money while pretending to check the building’s fire equipment. Amazingly, it worked! As per MailOnline:
The worker from the hotel’s security office said ‘an unknown person’ had contacted the casino cage – where money, casino chips, credit chips, and other paperwork are kept – and claimed to ‘be the owner of the hotel.’ The person then requested $320,000 for an emergency payment to the fire department.
The employee told police that the person said ‘the fire department needed to do a check on the fire extinguishers’ and ‘they would need a payment for further safety devices.’ She provided the money in four installments to the unknown individual at multiple off-site locations.
The payments respectively totaled $314,000, $350,000, and $500,000, in addition to three smaller deposits. The total loss of funds amounted to $1,170,000.
Gutierrez was promptly arrested for the scam, and seemingly had no real post-robbery plan. It actually seems like not even he thought there was an actual possibility the casino would just hand him $1million in cash, and so it was fairly easy for detectives to track him down:
Detectives then managed to track down the car involved in the suspected scammer theft. Police believe the car belonged to Gutierrez’s aunt, with whom he resides. Law enforcement also surveilled the aunt’s home, during which time they saw a different car arrive and then leave with Gutierrez and another man inside. No money was found when searching that vehicle, police said.
When police searched the home, they found ID belonging to Gutierrez, and as well as a ‘large bag of U.S. currency bundled together with the name Circa written on the bundle.’
Gutierrez was arrested on Sunday June 18 – one day after cops had been called to Circa – at a gym. Another man in the car with Gutierrez prior to his arrest was not detained.
Lol – just popped out the house, scammed a casino out of $1 million, and then casually drove back to his aunt’s house. Incredible. It honestly seems like he genuinely thought he had gotten away with stealing over a million in cash in broad daylight, and was just going about his day as normal. Maybe his plan was to hit the casino again for another withdrawal?
At least he put some thought into where to stash some of his ‘winnings’:
Police later recovered close to $850,00 – though the location of the remaining $314,000 remains a mystery.
Just let him keep it at this point, tbh. As for the employee who handed over the cash, she was either in on it or too stupid to realise she was being blatantly scammed. Either way, one p45 coming up, I reckon.
For the gang inmate who manage to steal $11 million while being IN prison already, click HERE. Incredible.
