DETROIT – A Chicago man has been convicted in the theft of $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 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 southwest 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.
Gaytan-Garcia was convicted of two charges Thursday in federal court in Kalamazoo. His attorney couldn’t immediately comment Friday.
Investigators said they recovered $18,000 from a safe in Gaytan-Garcia’s Chicago home.
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