What to Know
- Doral Police arrested 18-year-old Andres Villavicencio on Friday after they identified him as an accountholder of wired extortion money.
One phone call cost a California resident $20,000 and their peace of mind – while landing a Miami-Dade teenager behind bars.
Doral Police arrested 18-year-old Andres Villavicencio on Friday after they identified him as an accountholder of wired extortion money, charging him with several counts that include grand theft.
According to an arrest report, Villavicencio was part of a phone scheme in San Francisco where a victim was called by a woman pretending to work at the Los Angeles Police Department. The caller tricked the victim into believing that they were being investigated under drug trafficking charges and must cooperate with the investigation.
To seem legitimate, the caller provided the victim with personal and private details about them. The victim made two wire transfers totaling $20,000 to prove that the money in the accounts was not fraudulent.
One of the transfers was made to Villavicencio’s account as a bank’s video surveillance footage caught him making three withdrawals from the involved account.
