CUTLER BAY, Fla. — A 29-year-old former cellphone store employee is facing fraud and grand theft charges.
Deputies with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said Fernando Guevara-Olvera, of Homestead, worked at Luna Wireless, a T-Mobile authorized retailer, located at 20519 Old Cutler Road., in Cutler Bay.
According to investigators, Guevara-Olvera was hired in November of 2025 as a sales representative and “developed an excellent reputation among customers” to the point where customers “often refused assistance from other employees because they believed he was the most knowledgeable sales representative at the location.”
Deputies said Guevara-Olvera “exploited that trust by implementing and continuing a fraudulent scheme over several months.”
According to MDSO, when customers would upgrade their cellphones and surrender their old ones, Guevara-Olvera would keep the phones instead of properly processing them as trade-in devices, after which he “entered information into T-Mobile’s sales system making it appear that the trade-in had been completed.”
Investigators then learned that the fraud didn’t stop there, as Guevara-Olvera would activate “unauthorized cellular lines on customer accounts, changing customers wireless plans without authorization, and adding additional equipment including Apple iPhones, Apple watches and Apple EarPods,” according to his arrest form.
Deputies said Guevara-Olvera would tell customers that any billing issues were due to T-Mobile system errors, and that he would even use his personal bank account to apply payments to customers which “caused customers bank account balances to temporarily decrease, leading customers to believe their billing concerns had been resolved,” but after two or three days passed, they said the payments were returned or reversed.
According to authorities, the fraudulent activity occurred between November and February. They said Guevara-Olvera resigned from his job on Feb. 28, before any of the fraudulent activity had been discovered.
Deputies said in the days and weeks that followed, customers began returning to the Old Cutler store in increasing numbers to report the missing credits and billing issues, to the point where management told investigators that “nearly every transaction processed by Guevara required manual review and corrective action.”
It was determined by Luna Wireless that the business sustained customer courtesy-credit losses totaling $15,020.72 and inventory losses totaling $11,769.00 for a total combined documented financial loss attributed to Guevara-Olvera’s actions as $26,789.72, authorities said.
Members of MDSO’s Organized Crime Bureau said they located Guevara-Olvera on Tuesday and took him into custody without incident.
According to his arrest form, Guevara-Olvera spoke to detectives and admitted to some of the crimes, but said he believed his former manager was blaming him for things that he was not responsible for despite deputies advising him that the business had provided specific details “itemized by customer, transaction date and affected account.”
A further admission by Guevara-Olvera was redacted from his arrest form.
As of Wednesday afternoon, he was being held at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on charges of grand theft and organized fraud with bond listed as “to be set.”
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