Man who stole $800,000 from elderly person in Miami area pleads guilty to fraud
Three years ago, a Cuban man living in Panama set his sights on the flush bank account of an elderly person in South Florida, federal authorities say.
Michel Duarte Suarez, 50, ended up stealing more than $800,000 from the person’s account and laundered the money with the help of associates in the Miami area, according to his plea agreement filed on Wednesday in Miami federal court.
Suarez pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank and mail fraud, along with aggravated identity theft. He faces several years in prison, including mandatory-minimum punishment of two years for the ID theft conviction, at his sentencing hearing in September before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams.
Suarez was indicted in 2023 but was living in Panama City, Panama, at the time. In early 2025, he was arrested in Panama and brought to South Florida to face the charges.
According to a factual statement filed with his plea agreement, here’s how Suarez carried out the scam during an FBI-led undercover operation:
More than 80 fraudulent checks
In March 2022, Suarez told a confidential informant that he had access to the bank account of an elderly person, who was 82 years old at the time. Suarez created and mailed dozens of falsified checks from Panama to South Florida to the victim’s bank with directions to cash them and return half of the money to his account at Bank of America. The ill-gotten proceeds were wired to his Miami-based company, Online Electronics.
To carry out the scheme, Suarez’s fraudulent checks contained forged signatures designed to resemble that of the victim’s on a signature card at Truist Bank.
“In total, Suarez and his co-conspirators stole $803,146 from [the victim’s] bank account at Truist through the issuance of more than 80 fraudulent checks to numerous different payees, including at least five individuals and various companies,” according to the factual statement signed by the defendant, his lawyer and a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami.
The statement also said the elderly person reviewed the names of the individuals and companies involved in the fraudulent check transactions. The person did not authorize any of them.
The case, investigated by the FBI, Secret Service and FDIC’s Office of Inspector General, was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thor Pogozelski.
This story was originally published July 10, 2025 at 11:32 AM.
