Jury convicts man in bold scheme to steal US$700,000 from Michigan casino

In this file photo, slot machines are seen at a Four Winds Casino location, Friday, June 12, 2020, in New Buffalo, Mich. (Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP) (DON CAMPBELL/AP)

DETROIT, Mich. — A Chicago man has been convicted in the theft of US$700,000 from a Michigan casino, a brazen scheme in which an employee was tricked over the phone into stuffing the cash into a designer bag and driving 85 miles (137 kilometres) to deliver it.

“This case underscores the need for businesses, organizations and citizens to be diligent and cautious about phone and internet scams,” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten said.

The crime occurred in 2023 at the Four Winds Casino in Hartford in southwestern Michigan, which is operated by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. The FBI said a key employee who handles cash received a phone call and text messages directing her to immediately gather $700,000 for a tribal official.

No one stopped the employee as she filled a Michael Kors bag with bundles of cash, walked out of the casino and drove away.

She stayed on the phone with the caller who eventually told her to go to a gas station in Gary, Indiana. That’s when she passed the cash to Jesus Gaytan-Garcia, one of two men in a minivan who met her, investigators said.

“She was cooperative with investigators and told them about the call, the text messages and the money transfer at the gas station,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Lane said in a court filing.

Gaytan-Garcia wasn’t arrested until March 2024, seven months later, after investigators were able to link him to the vehicle used to pick up the cash.

He was convicted of two charges Thursday in federal court in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His attorney couldn’t immediately comment Friday.

Investigators said they recovered $18,000 from a safe in Gaytan-Garcia’s Chicago home. The money was wrapped and marked with the date of the casino theft.

Searches at Gaytan-Garcia’s trailers in Indiana revealed evidence of money transfers, antique coins, Civil War currency and foreign currency, Lane said.

Ed White, The Associated Press