Secret Service agents and local police searched a Pembroke Pines home and arrested two men in an elaborate scheme that involved using a credit card to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal profits, according to federal documents released Wednesday.
A day after the warrant was served Tuesday at the Grand Palms Country Club home, a judge unsealed the criminal complaint. It details an operation that began in February in which Willan Pupo, 36, and Joel Castillo, 38, used a rented credit card vending machine to generate more than $975,000 in fraudulent income, the Secret Service said.
The legitimate use of POS systems is to collect credit card payments for retail transactions.
But according to the complaint, Pupo and Castillo — along with others who have not yet been named — swiped stolen credit card numbers through the machine to make false transactions, then wired the money to a bank account registered to the fictitious company that originally rented the device, the complaint says.
The duo now face charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
Miami attorney Alejandro Varona, who said he is representing Castillo “on an interim basis,” declined to comment on the complaint when contacted by the Miami Herald Wednesday afternoon.
An attorney for Pupo was not listed in the complaint. According to Local 10, Pupo tested positive for COVID and was not in court for his initial appearance before a judge Wednesday.
Castillo was present in court, where a judge set bail at $160,000, of which $60,000 is a “nebbia” bail, meaning a judge can ask for the source of the money.
How Federal Agents Solved the Case
From Feb. 14 through March 13, 268 charges totaling $975,565.10 were made through the device, the Secret Service said. Federal agents launched an investigation after receiving a tip in April.
Within days of the bogus transactions, credit card companies began receiving calls from customers disputing the charges, the complaint said. The credit card companies looked for the money in the bank account opened by the shell company that leased the device, but the money was gone, the complaint said.
That left the company that rented the device responsible for refunding the money, officers said. The company, which was not named in the complaint, disabled the device and reported the debacle to police, the complaint said.
Secret Service agents examined the documents used to apply to rent the point-of-sale device, including the IP address used in the electronic signature. They ultimately zeroed in on a West Palm Beach auto shop called WTW Customs and World of Tires & Wheels.
Castillo and Pupo are two of the store’s registered managers, along with two other individuals — listed in the complaint as “co-conspirators 1 and 2.”
While the transactions were being made and the money was being sent to the bank account of the company that was renting the device, agents also discovered that the money was being transferred to other accounts. From a $915,639 transfer to one account, 15 checks were made out to a company called Joel C. Property Investments, the complaint said.
Agents confirmed that Castillo is listed in state records as a manager of that company.
Another set of 10 checks, totaling $361,909, were made out to a company called Time Pieces Jewelry, Inc., the complaint said. The registered president of that company? Pupo.
After the original device was disabled, Pupo and Castillo applied to another provider to rent a new point-of-origin device, the complaint said.
This time, Secret Service agents worked with the device’s vendor to implant an electronic tracker into the device.
On May 22, undercover agents delivered the device to Pupo’s home at Grand Palms Country Club, which was under surveillance by other federal agents, the complaint said. Pupo answered the door and signed for the delivery, the complaint said.
They used the tracker to determine that the new point of sale device had been taken to Castillo’s home, where it remained until June 22, according to agents.
Officers observed that several transactions were made through the device and the money was then transferred to bank accounts registered to Castillo, Pupa and the others not named in the complaint.
