FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Federal agents arrested a Fort Lauderdale woman on Tuesday in connection with what prosecutors said is an eight-figure fraud case involving scammed seniors and two notorious gangs.
Stephanie Alonzo, 41, is facing charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in Fresno, California federal court. Several others, whose names were redacted in court documents, are also accused.
Federal authorities said the conspiracy stretched from California to South Florida to Mexico and Central America.
According to a federal indictment from the Eastern District of California, the participants “targeted persons over the age of (55)” and contacted victims who owned or previously owned timeshares.
Prosecutors said the participants falsely claimed to be attorneys, paralegals and government officials and told the victims that they were entitled to receive money “related to legal settlements concerning their timeshares.”
Authorities said the victims were told they “had to make initial payments amounting to a percentage of the expected recovery” in order to receive the funds.
According to the indictment, the participants “extract(ed) additional and increasing amounts of money from the victims,” who “were directed to send the payments to fictitious business names (DBA) and shell companies.”
One of the shell companies identified in the complaint was Horizons 180, LLC, registered to Alonzo using an address at an office building connected to Fort Lauderdale’s Galleria mall. Alonzo, who lives in the Lauderdale Manors neighborhood, dissolved the company in August.
The participants, authorities said, would then launder the funds by sending them from the shell companies “to other bank accounts located in the United States, Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua.”
Investigators said the participants bilked the victims out of more than $30 million ― and some of the money went to the Nuestra Familia and Norteño criminal organizations, two primarily Mexican-American gangs centered in California.
Court records show Alonzo was scheduled to appear before a Fort Lauderdale federal judge at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
As of Tuesday morning, she wasn’t listed in Federal Bureau of Prisons records or those of the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which regularly holds inmates on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.
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