A man and two women have been charged with stealing the identities of seven victims of the Surfside condo collapse and attempting to obtain credit cards in their names.
Betsy Alejandra Cacho Medina, 30; her boyfriend Rodney Choute, 38; and Kimberly Michelle Johnson, 34, face charges of conspiracy to defraud, identity theft and using false documents, among other offenses.
The suspects are alleged to have assumed the identities of five people who died in the collapse, plus two survivors, in order to open new credit cards, Miami-Dade prosecutor Katherine Fernandez Rundle said during a press conference.
The alleged scheme involved the use of vacant residences as drop-off boxes for the delivery of the victims' credit cards.
The suspects used the cards to buy items such as shoes and luxury handbags and to make bank transfers, prosecutors claim.
They purchased at least $45,000 worth of goods in total, according to court documents.
'Cyber grave robbers did move very quickly after the collapse to grab what they could while family and friends were in absolute emotional turmoil,' Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said at a news conference.
The suspects could spend 15 to 30 years behind bars, Fernandez Rundle said.
Bond has been set at $1 million for Cacho-Medina. Johnson is being held on $500,000 bond and a $430,000 bond has been placed on Choute.
Nearly 100 people were killed when the 12-story residential building came down early in the morning of June 24. It took more than a month for search crews to recover and identify the remains of all individuals who were trapped in the rubble.
Of the 98 people killed in the collapse, all but one of them died at the scene.
The cause of its collapse remains undetermined. A 2018 engineering report found the edifice had deficiencies that are now at the focus of multiple inquiries, including a grand jury probe.
'For most of us and most of America, this unbelievable tragedy tore at our very hearts - but, for a group of alleged identity thieves, it was a time to make some money,' Fernandez Rundle said.
Rodney Choute (left), Kimberly Johnson (center) and Bettsy Cacho-Medina, right, have all been charged over the grave-robbing
A woman, alleged to be Medina, was seen on a store's security cameras using Ortiz's card to buy a black Versace purse for $1,658.50. The next day, police said, Medina was seen toting the same Versace purse she had purchased the day before
Betsy Alejandra Cacho Medina, 30, her boyfriend Rodney Choute, 38, and Kimberly Michelle Johnson, 34 could each spend 15 to 30 years behind bars, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle (pictured center) said at a Wednesday press conference.
BEFORE: Rescue and recovery workers had spent nearly four weeks combing through and removing the rubble of the building. It is pictured on June 24 the day of its collapse
In total, the group of 'professional' identity thieves allegedly stole $45,000, and were prevented from stealing $67,000 more by loss prevention departments.
The scammers were allegedly able to get the names and dates of birth of victims from news reports.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who spent weeks working at the site, giving updates on rescue efforts, also commented on the arrests Wednesday.
'We've worked so hard to do everything we can to restore the lives of those families who lost their loved ones and the survivors of the building collapse,' she said.
'What a tragedy that anyone would seek to exploit this situation.'
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said he was confident that the suspects would eventually be arrested.
'Today they got what they deserved and we're all much happier for it,' he said.
Police said they were tipped off to the identity fraud on July 9 when Nicole Ortiz - the sister of Ana Ortiz, one of the victims in the Champlain Towers South collapse - reported suspicious activity on her late relative's financial accounts.
She told police that multiple unauthorized wire transfers were made in her sister's name that she had been notified of several requests for replacement credit cards and that the mailing addresses for many of her sister's financial institutions had been changed by phone, per an affidavit released Wednesday.
At that point, Detective Andres Mendoza of the Surfside Police Department was assigned to investigate, the affidavit said.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said he was confident that the suspects would eventually be arrested: 'Today they got what they deserved and we're all much happier for it,' he said.
He quickly discovered that a Nordstrom VISA credit card was issued in the dead woman's name on July 8 to place an order for Medusa sandals worth $374.50 from a Nordstrom store in Aventura Mall.
A black woman wearing a hat and protective mask showed up to pick up the order, per obtained CCTV footage - then, video from the store's parking lot showed her getting into a black 2019 Mercedes-Benz with a Florida license plate.
Mendoza tracked the license plate back to Medina, who police said had registered the car using the address 300 NE 1st Court in Hallandale, Florida. Police learned later that the apartment at that address was vacant, and none of the alleged scammers lived there.
Police determined that a replacement Barclays View Mastercard was sent to the same address after a woman claiming to be Ana Ortiz called the bank July 6.
'I want to get my card shipped to me at an alternative address... because I was a victim of the towers that just collapsed [in] Surfside,' a woman who police said was Medina told a representative in a recording played during the press conference.
Police determined that a replacement Barclays View Mastercard for Ortiz's deceased sister's bank account was sent to the same address after a woman claiming to be the account's owner called the bank July 6
!['I want to get my card shipped to me at an alternative address... because I was a victim of the towers that just collapsed [in] Surfside,' Medina told a bank representative in a recording played during the press conference](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/09/08/21/47671707-9970317-image-a-10_1631134170363.jpg)
'I want to get my card shipped to me at an alternative address... because I was a victim of the towers that just collapsed [in] Surfside,' Medina told a bank representative in a recording played during the press conference
The card was delivered the next day, and over the next two days, 28 attempted transactions totaling $13,389.80 were recorded - ten of those transactions, totaling $5,892.93, were approved according to the affidavit.
Again, a woman alleged to be Medina was caught on CCTV footage, this time using the a walk-up ATM machine at Aventura Mall's Bank of America location on July 7. She tried withdrawing money three times unsuccessfully.
The same day, the woman purchased a $957.65 pair of Christian Louboutin shoes at a store in Miami's design district using the card, per the store's CCTV footage.
About 20 minutes later she was seen on another store's security cameras using Ortiz's card to buy a black Versace purse for $1,658.50.
Medina allegedly purchased a $957.65 pair of Christian Louboutin shoes at a store in Miami's design district on July 7 using the card, per the store's CCTV footage
The next day, police said, Medina bought $220.57 in Target merchandise - she was seen toting the same Versace purse she had purchased the day before. Before leaving the store, police said, she made another unsuccessful attempt at withdrawing money from an ATM.
Later that day around 4:30 pm, a black man who would later be identified by police as Choute is seen on security footage using Ortiz's credit card to attempt a purchase of $500 in Walgreens gift cards in Broward County.
The next day police say Choute successfully bought $539.18 in Visa gift cards and merchandise from another Target in Pembroke Pines.
Police paid a visit to the address given for the two cards, said the affidavit, and found that the mailboxes for the apartment building there was broken - anyone could access the mailbox for apartment 101.
Then, Mendoza and Detective Kenneth Sealy of the Aventura Police Department used Medina's vehicle registration to get a copy of her California driver's license, which they said bore resemblance to the woman they had seen on CCTV footage.
Ana Ortiz's husband, who also died in the collapse and was identified as 'F.K.' in the affadavit, was also victimized. Choute allegedly called Wells Fargo pretending to be the man, changing the address on the deceased man's account to the Hallandale drop box location.
Another victim of the scam, whose initials are M.C., was out of town when the condominium collapsed and survived the disaster.
However, her personal information was compromised in the chaos, police said, and she allegedly told police that another person had accessed her Bank of America account, withdrawing approximately $3,500.
Medina and Choute's names, as well as the name of the third suspect, Kimberly Johnson, had allegedly been registered on several victims' accounts.
Then, on July 26, police said U.S. Postal Inspectors seized a Discover credit card statement addressed to another deceased victim of the disaster that was en route to the Hallandale address.
This victim, whose initials are A.M., had 50 transactions attempted on her Discover card between July 7 and 24th.
Over $30,000 was squeezed from the account, police said, by the scammers.
Two black women, later identified by police as Medina and Johnson, were allegedly caught on CCTV footage using the card to buy $1,786.90 of Burberry merchandise from the Aventura Mall on July 21.
Police said Johnson had the Hallandale address listed on her driver's license since March of 2020.
The pair left in a 2015 white BMW that is allegedly co-registered to both Medina and Johnson, which is how police said they ascertained the second woman's identity.
Three letters from FEMA, addressed to a fourth victim who had survived the collapse, were allegedly sent to the address as well - Medina also called the organization attempting to embezzle disaster relief funds.
Much of the fraudulent calls, police said, were facilitated with a practice called 'porting' - the scammers called the victim's phone companies and tricking them into switching their phone information and data to a new number.
Then, that number can be used to receive verification text messages sent by banks to account holder's phones.
Detectives sifted through multiple fake IDs and registrations and found that Johnson rented an apartment at 831 NE 207th Lane #2-202, where Medina lived previously, police said - Medina gave a referral for Johnson to the building's management, claiming to be her sister.
Medina, police learned, had moved into another apartment at 20905 NE 8th Court in Miami, allegedly using a fake social security card to secure her lease - Choute's name was also listed on that lease, and used a fake New Jersey driver's license.
The license plate on another vehicle driven by Medina even bore a fake Florida license plate, police said.
Johnson was arrested today at the 207th Lane apartment, according to her arrest warrant, while Medina and Choute were taken into custody at at 415 NE 142nd Street in North Miami, which police said is owned by one of Choute's relatives - the connection to the family member helped police verify his identity.
Tracking technology from the FBI and Secret Service, attached clandestinely to the black BMW, was used to tie the couple to the North Miami address, police said.
A fifth victim with the initials K.T. does not have a connection to the condo's collapse, police said. Another victim unrelated to the tragedy is 71 years old, police said, and had $10,000 stolen in total.
Miami-Dade's Office of the State Attorney reported the arrests on Wednesday.
The development comes more than two months after the Champlain Towers South collapsed suddenly on the night of June 24, leaving firefighters to comb the rubble for victims until mid-July.
About a month after the tragedy relatives of those killed began reporting that credit cards were being taken out in their loved ones' names, according to the Miami Herald.
One woman told the Miami Herald that she saw strange emails on her deceased sister's iPad the night before her funeral - they were automated notifications for password and information changes to the dead woman's bank accounts and detailed expensive purchases and withdrawals.
'I was home writing the eulogy. I don't know why, but I looked down. I saw notifications from Wells Fargo. I saw emails with money transfers. I didn't even know she had a Wells Fargo account,' she told the outlet.
'It was crazy. These people are professional. Who would do something like this?'
'I can't wait to put a face to these deeds right now, and I think all of South Florida is eager to see who would do something like this,' Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said to Local 10 before the identities of the perpetrators were announced
'What kind of person would do something like this? ... I wouldn't want to be that person right now.'
When Champlain Towers South was completed in 1981, it was described as being one of the largest condo projects in Surfside's history.
Shortly after June's disaster, it became clear that warnings about Champlain Towers South, had gone unheeded.
A 2018 engineering report detailed cracked and degraded concrete support beams in the underground parking garage and other problems that would cost nearly $10 million to fix.
The repairs did not happen, and the estimate grew to $15 million this year as the owners of the building's 136 units and its governing condo board squabbled over the cost, especially after a Surfside town inspector told them the building was safe.
Investigators have yet to determine what caused about half of the 136-unit highrise to cave in on itself in one of the deadliest building collapses in U.S. history. The portion of the structure that was left standing, but unstable, was deliberately
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