On October 2, 2025, the Orlando Police Department arrested 51-year-old Juan Viera-Castro for serving as a money mule for a government refund scam, where:
- The victim, 71-year-old Robert McCutcheon from Haines City, was contacted by a scammer who falsely claimed to work for the Federal Trade Commission in regards to a supposed “overpayment of $150,000” into their account.
- The scammer will demand McCutcheon pays $50,000 in the form of two checks without disclosing the transaction to anyone else in order to avoid suspicion.
- The check was picked up by Viera-Castro, who attempted to cash the check in at the South State Bank on the grounds of doing a “construction project”
Viera-Castro was charged with grand theft from a person 65 or older, but has since been bonded out of jail. I was able to conduct a traceback of his name on TruePeopleSearch and found him to be of Puerto Rican descent and currently residing in Martinsville, Virginia.