Two suspects, Roberto Carlos Gonzales Miranda and Roberto Orellana, now find themselves in the spotlight, facing charges for a scam that netted them over $350,000 from a casino in South Dakota.
The duo has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit theft. This case hones in on a tribal gaming establishment, specifically the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Grand River Casino.
Nebraska Casino Employee Gets Fooled by Audacious Criminals
This heist, executed with the precision of a card shark playing a royal flush, followed a script eerily reminiscent of other brazen attacks on casino properties. It all started when an elusive woman called the casino’s cage manager, informing them that they’d need to shell out $700,000 to cover an assortment of fees, with a USPS delivery man en route to collect the payment.
In a plot twist worthy of a poker game’s river card, the woman claimed the funds were needed to “settle various fees from inspections and fines.” This well-rehearsed tale left the cage manager overwhelmed by a flurry of bizarre, urgent, and undeniably intimidating demands.
As if the live action drama wasn’t already gripping enough, while still on the phone, the cage manager received a text message supposedly from their boss, directing them to clear out the vault and proceed to another location. The new orders were to drive to a Bitcoin ATM in Aberdeen and deposit the money there.
Casino Employees Remain Vulnerable to Elaborate Scams
Entrusting the text’s instructions like putting faith in a wildcard hand, the employee withdrew $352,000 from the vault and headed off to Aberdeen. But the con’s clever twists weren’t over just yet. En route to the Bitcoin ATM, the employee received another call, this time rerouting them to a Mitchell gas station to personally hand over the cash to Miranda, which they did without question.
The narrative then takes a mysterious turn, leaving many casino regulators and industry insiders scratching their heads. It remains unclear how the dialogue leaped from paying up $700,000 to a clandestine meet-up at a Mitchell gas station. Similarly elusive is whether the employee now faces scrutiny from federal investigators.
If Miranda and his co-conspirator reach a guilty verdict, they face serious consequences, including up to 15 years behind bars and a $30,000 fine. This case, an emblematic house of cards, serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerability of casino employees to sophisticated scams, reshuffling the deck on how we perceive security in the industry.
