FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Multiple people reported to federal authorities that they wired funds after agreeing to purchase vehicles online, but never got their cars.
The money, investigators say, went to bank accounts in South Florida.
Recommended Videos
According to federal court documents, Homeland Security Investigations agents were able to trace the transactions to accounts opened by Lithuanian national “John Himmer” in Miami and Aventura through a company registered in Sunny Isles Beach.
“John Himmer” was indeed Lithuanian, authorities said, but that wasn’t his real name: It was Tomas Alksnys.
Alksnys, 29, appeared in Fort Lauderdale federal court on a bank fraud charge Tuesday.
According to charging documents, a victim in Virginia thought he or she was buying a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro from what was “thought to be a legitimate website for a well-known online auction company” in May 2023.
A woman who identified herself as “S.C.” told the victim to wire $24,400 and the victim would get the classic car. Authorities said the victim wired the money but never got the car.
One day after receiving the funds, charging documents state Alksnys withdrew the funds from bank branches in Bay Harbor Islands and North Miami.
Later in May, prosecutors said a victim from New York saw a Mercedes-Benz advertised online on what, again, appeared to be a legitimate auction website.
After wiring $63,749 for the vehicle, the victim told authorities that he or she “attempted to recall the wire on the same day, due to having a bad feeling,” but it was too late, court documents state.
Authorities said attempts to call and email a woman the victim spoke to on the phone were unsuccessful and three days later, the auction website — like his or her money — disappeared.
Court documents state that Alksnys’ account received a second wire for $84,500 on the same day as the $63,749 wire, totaling $143,609.
Over a roughly six-day span, the funds were “dissipated via cash withdrawals, wires and debit card purchases,” court documents state, including two cash withdrawals from a Hollywood bank branch totaling $38,000.
Agents said surveillance stills from that withdrawal helped them identify “John Himmer” as Alksnys. They said they used facial recognition software to match the stills with a photograph of Alksnys taken at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport border crossing on Oct. 19, 2022.
Authorities said he entered the U.S. under his own name via the Visa Waiver Program, formed the company on Jan. 10, 2023 and left the country five days later from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, headed for Mexico.
They said he was denied entry after trying to return to FLL three days afterward, but somehow illegally returned to the U.S. between then and Nov. 10, 2023, when law enforcement encountered him in Miami-Dade County and placed into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He would later be booked into the Broward Main Jail on a U.S. Marshals hold Monday, ahead of his federal court appearance in Fort Lauderdale.
He remains there, as of Wednesday, with a detention hearing and arraignment scheduled for Monday and on April 16, respectively.
Read the court documents: