PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Police say a woman from northern Florida lost nearly $30,000 to a scammer later traced south to Broward County — and it all began with a computer pop-up.
Authorities arrested Alexis Gonzalez-Rodriguez, 26, of Pembroke Pines, on a second-degree grand theft charge Monday.
Recommended Videos
According to an arrest warrant from the Pembroke Pines Police Department, the woman, who lives in rural Union County, got the pop-up on her computer on March 21, 2022. She was 71 at the time.
Police said that pop-up was purportedly from Microsoft and asked her to call an 800 number.
According to the warrant, the woman did so and the voice on the line informed her that her computer had been hacked and Trojan spyware had been installed.
She was also told, police said, that there was a pending transaction in her bank account from crypto platform Coinbase and that her Social Security number had been compromised.
Somehow, the person on the phone knew where she banked, though the warrant doesn’t explain how — because she would later tell police she did not know Gonzalez-Rodriguez. The warrant doesn’t make clear whether he was the voice on the line or if he was working in concert with someone else.
The person on the phone told the woman that in order to protect her money, she would need to wire it to a fictitious account in a different name. Then, according to the warrant, a representative from her bank would deliver her new account information along with a cashier’s check for the money she wired.
But, instead, police said the $29,035 she sent ended up in a Bank of America account controlled by Gonzalez-Rodriguez.
The warrant states that surveillance images show Gonzalez-Rodriguez withdrawing most of the money at the bank’s branch at 8398 Pines Blvd.
Prior to his arrest, Gonzalez-Rodriguez’s attorney entered a written plea of not guilty on his behalf Friday.
He remained in the Broward Main Jail on a $10,000 bond as of Tuesday evening, according to jail records.