On September 16, 2025, the Broward Sheriff’s Office in Florida arrested 22-year-old Omari Shenard Burke at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport based on tips received from the FBI and the South Florida Fraud Task Force on him serving as a money mule for a bank scam, where:
- The Indian scammers would call their victim, in this case a 74-year-old man from Alabama, under the guise of an employee from the Wells Fargo fraud department.
- The scammer will falsely claim a hacker was attempting to withdraw a large sum of money from their account, prompting them to “verify” the balance by withdrawing $20,000 from their account and handing it off to a designated courier, or money mule.
- One the money is received, the scammer will call the victim back and initiate a 3-way conference call with the victim and a co-worker who will pose as an investigator and demand an additional $20,000.
After flaunting about the money on his Instagram account, Burke has since been charged with
- Obtaining money over $20,000 by fraud
- Money laundering
- Unlawful use of a two-way communications device
- Defrauding a financial institution
- Grand theft on a person 65 or older.
Burke has a prior criminal history of fraudulent activity in Broward County, and investigators also consider him to be a danger to the community, especially the elderly population.