What started as a traffic stop resulted in the arrest of a seasoned scamming crew accused of targeting dozens of victims across the country, including an elderly man in Moorpark.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office announced on Monday that three suspects were driving through Garfield County, Colorado, on April 19 when they were stopped for an “unrelated traffic violation.”
Deputies saw felony arrest warrants for the suspects, took them into custody, and in the investigation that followed, detectives found at least 11 cases of the crew scamming people in Southern California, and then another 14 cases in New York since December 2023.
The way these scams were orchestrated, according to officials, started by targeting elderly victims trying to use ATMs.
According to the sheriff’s office, a 70-year-old Moorpark man was trying to withdraw money from an ATM at Bank of America on Dec. 27, 2024, around 11:30 a.m., when one of the suspects approached him.
The suspect offered to help the man by showing him the “tap” feature on the ATM, rather than inserting the ATM card into the machine.
Officials said that, unbeknownst to the man, the suspect swapped the victim’s ATM card with another ATM card.
Detectives purportedly found surveillance video that showed a second suspect, during this exchange, watching the victim then enter his PIN into the machine.
“With the victim’s ATM card and the knowledge of the victim’s PIN, the two male suspects and a third female suspect used the victim’s ATM card to make multiple withdrawals at various ATMs throughout Southern California for a total loss of $3,800,” detailed the sheriff’s office in a release.
In the following months, investigators identified the three crewmembers as Pedro Quispe, 61, Dawis Escribano, 40, and Estefani Falla, 25, all residents of New York.
All three suspects were extradited to Ventura County and await arraignment on $150,000 bail.
