PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — A 58-year-old woman from Belle Glade is out $2,000 after she was robbed at gunpoint.
Court records show two people, Mauricio Gomez Cardona and Greisy Pinzon Camargo, were arrested and charged with kidnapping and robbery with a firearm.
Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office deputies said the two individuals put a woman into a car and drove her to her sister’s house to get $2,000. Then they put a gun to her head, stole the money and threw her out of a van.
According to court records, the woman said she entered the car because she was trying to help a man, who claimed he didn’t have immigration papers, claim a lottery prize of an unspecified amount. She said the two people approached her separately at a Winn-Dixie in Belle Glade.
While on the road, the victim heard one of the suspects on the phone with another unknown individual, who informed them they had a winning lottery ticket.
Then they drove to a Papa John’s, where one of the suspects claimed she got $7,000 from a cleaning business. They then asked the victim to get more money. According to police, she then borrowed $2,000 from her sister. Then she was robbed.
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Deputies said this had similarities to a common scam called the “Latin Lotto" scam around the country.
According to deputies, this is a theft by fraud or robbery in which the perpetrators misrepresent a lottery ticket as a winning ticket. Then perpetrators tell the victim they cannot cash the ticket and give various fake reasons in each case, most commonly dealing with immigration status.
The perpetrators offer to share the winnings with the victim if the victim cashes the ticket. The perpetrators then require the victim to provide some form of collateral, usually currency or jewelry, to ensure that the victim will return with the perpetrator’s share of the winnings.
Often, the perpetrators contact a third party, who misrepresents themselves as an attorney. Once the perpetrators have the victim’s money, they typically flee or take the victim’s money by force.
Deputies used phone records and GPS data from a rental car company to find and arrest the suspects. They said CCTV footage shows the suspects potentially trying to find other victims in other parking lots.
