Miami-area rapper and three others arrested in $360,000 Walmart money transfer scheme
A South Florida rapper and three others were arrested for their involvement in an organized fraud scheme that used Walmart wire transfers to steal more than $360,000, according to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
The scheme involved fake caller IDs and an inside job.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez on Friday announced the arrests of Emmanuel Alexis of Sunny Isles Beach and Jahson Rayon Linton of Boynton Beach, both 31.
Alexis also goes by the stage name Tafia. He’s originally from North Miami and is signed under Meek Mill’s Dream Chasers label. He previously served a seven-year prison sentence for a 2008 robbery of casino poker winners when he was 18, according to Miami Herald archives.
In February, he made it onto Miami New Times list of “Ten Miami rappers to watch in 2021” and has 76,000 followers on Instagram. He was recently involved in a fiery crash on State Road 112, where his Audi SUV was sandwiched between a barrier wall and a tractor trailer.
Fernandez Rundle and Ramirez also announced the arrests of two Walmart employees, 30-year-old Michelle Denise Gilyard of Miami and 26-year-old Vitnelson Saint Fleur of West Palm Beach.
“Today’s sophisticated scammers are always probing to find ways to grab the cash of every business and every consumer,” said Fernandez Rundle in a statement. “Gaining the assistance of a trusted employee always makes the criminal’s job easier.”
All four were charged with one count of first-degree felonies of organized scheme to defraud and conspiracy to commit an organized scheme to defraud. Alexis and Gilyard are also being charged with one count of first-degree felony of grand theft. Saint Fleur and Linton are also charged with one count of second-degree felony of grand theft.
Authorities say this is the way the scam worked:
The big box retailer offers a money transfer service that allows customers at any Walmart store in the United States to send money to a person at any other Walmart, with sufficient identification.
The state attorney’s office says the suspects called Walmart stores using a falsified caller ID, known as “spoofing,” to make it look like they were from Walmart’s home office, the retailer’s computer repair vendor NCR or from MoneyGram, one of the independent money transfer services the retailer contracts with.
They would then request money transfer “system tests,” which they claimed would be canceled on their end. The transfers, however, were never canceled, allowing them to get the money, according to the state attorney’s office.
In late 2018, the Global Investigations Branch of Walmart uncovered several fraudulent schemes linked to money transfer activity. As the “spoofed” phone calls began to be recognized by Walmart, the company found a way to identify the fraud and cancel those transfers.
So the scam strategy changed.
The state attorney’s office alleges Alexis and Linton had Gilyard, who worked at a Walmart in North Miami Beach, override and process suspended money transfers, which were often already flagged as fraudulent. They had Saint Fleur, who worked at a Walmart in Palm Springs, do the same. The duo were paid per transaction by Alexis and Linton, authorities said.
For their participation, police say, Gilyard and Saint Fleur were paid $200 or $300 cash for each transaction. Authorities say Gilyard processed a total of 130 fraudulent refund transactions amounting to $283,587.47 between June 29, 2018, and Jan. 24, 2019 — and Saint Fleur processed a total of 36 fraudulent refunds totaling $79,664.32 between Sept. 8, 2018, and Jan. 1, 2019.
This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 3:52 PM.
