AVENTURA, Fla. – A security director at an Aventura condominium building befriended a senior who lived there, compromised her Amazon account and bought more than $20,000 worth of items using the card linked to her account before her family members caught on and shut the scheme down, according to police.
Robert Anthony Radcliffe, 52, surrendered to Aventura police on Tuesday. Police say he used his position at the Williams Island 2800 Tower, located at 2800 Island Blvd., to gain the woman’s trust and steal from her.
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Police said the series of thefts began in November 2021, when the woman was 77, and continued until February 2023.
Radcliffe’s arrest report doesn’t specify how police believe he acquired the woman’s credentials, but police said the woman had no knowledge of what was happening and never gave him permission to purchase items.
In fact, Radcliffe “changed the settings on the victim’s account to have all previous transactions stored in a hidden archive folder so they would not show up in her recent transaction history,” police said.
Authorities said some items were delivered to the building’s front desk and signed for by Radcliffe, while others were sent to his home in northeast Miami-Dade’s Ives Estates area. Some of the purchased items included home security and home automation equipment, police said.
“The fraud was discovered after the victim’s financial (advisor) contacted her children regarding an unusual increase in spending, which was compromising the victim’s financial stability and independence,” investigators wrote in the report. “When the victim’s children conducted an audit of (her) accounts, they discovered the fraudulent transactions. The victim’s children had the victim change(d) the passwords to her Amazon account as a precaution.”
After the password change, on Feb. 21, Radcliffe went to the woman’s unit while the victim was away — without her permission — in order to try to find her new login information, police said.
According to the report, he didn’t find her new password, but did see her home security camera, at which point he began to “pray to the camera for forgiveness” and “ask(ed) for forgiveness and a chance to make it all right.”
He was fired soon after, police said.
Police said a search of Radcliffe’s phone turned up the victim’s login credentials for various accounts in his Notes app.
Authorities arrested Radcliffe on charges of organized scheme to defraud, fraudulent use of a credit card, theft from an elderly person and burglary.
The Jamaican national was no longer listed in Miami-Dade jail records as of Wednesday afternoon.