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“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. Other people connected to the theft remain
under investigation, said Tiffany Brown of the U.S. Attorney's
Office.
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.
“He lived in that house with his family and other families, and
there’s movement between the floors,” defense attorney Parker
Douglas said Friday. “The money was accessible to other people
there. My argument was there just wasn’t any hard evidence that
said this man did this at this time. The jury disagreed.”
Searches at Gaytan-Garcia's trailers in Indiana revealed
evidence of money transfers, antique coins, Civil War currency
and foreign currency, Lane said.
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