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A 23-year-old man is accused of posing as a Las Vegas hotel owner and convincing a casino to hand over more than $1 million in a recent con.
Erik Gutierrez was charged with theft of more than $100,000 after receiving bogus payments for fire safety equipment. Here’s more from David Charns of Channel 8 News Now.
On June 17, Las Vegas Metro police responded to the Circa Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas for a report of a possible scam, documents said. A person from the hotel’s security office told detectives “an unknown person” had contacted the casino cage “claiming to be the owner of the hotel” and asking for $320,000 for an emergency payment to the fire department, police wrote in court documents.
The person, who was not the hotel’s owner, said “the fire department needed to do a check on the fire extinguishers” and “they would need a payment for further safety devices,” documents said.
Those payments were reportedly delivered in a series of off-site drop-offs totaling $1,170,000.
After tracking the car used in the theft to Gutierrez’s residence, a search warrant was issued. Police later found a “large bag of U.S. currency bundled together with the name Circa written on the bundle.”
Around $850,000 was recovered while another $314,000 is reportedly missing.
Folks on social media have been quick to comment on the wild casino con story as they posted their reactions online.
Many immediately made popular movie references, with this follower writing, “Bro thought he was in Ocean’s Eleven.”
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) June 26, 2023
Others though of the Tom Hanks-Leonardo DiCaprio hit, Catch Me If You Can.
https://t.co/v9PeUsCbsk pic.twitter.com/UvP4HjnDMo
— BoiVin Bumpin 🍷 (@BoiVinBumpin) June 27, 2023
A number of others commented on the casino con. Most were shocked that he was able to pull it off (Well, sort of).
“This is crazy, at least they recovered 850K,” one account said while another wrote, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Man, genius, outsmarts a Vegas hotel
— Scoot (@C00T24) June 26, 2023
What a wild story out of Sin City.