LAS VEGAS (AP) — A girl used on-line relationship apps to lure a minimum of 4 older males to fulfill her in particular person, then drugged them with sedatives and stole a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} in a “sinister” romance scheme, FBI officers in Las Vegas mentioned Friday.
Three of the lads died, authorities mentioned, and she or he has been charged in one among their deaths.
Aurora Phelps, 43, who’s in custody in Mexico, faces 21 counts together with wire fraud, identification theft and one depend of kidnapping leading to loss of life, Sue Fahami, the performing United States lawyer for the District of Nevada, mentioned at a information convention.
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“It is a romance rip-off on steroids,” mentioned Spencer Evans, the particular agent accountable for the FBI’s Las Vegas division. One of many 4 victims, who had been focused in 2021 and 2022, awoke from a coma after Phelps gave him prescription sedatives over the course of per week, Evans added.
In a single occasion Phelps is alleged to have kidnapped a sufferer by closely sedating him and taking him throughout the U.S.-Mexico border in a wheelchair after which to a Mexico Metropolis lodge room, the place he was later discovered lifeless.
After incapacitating her victims, Evans mentioned, Phelps stole their vehicles, withdrew cash from their financial institution accounts, used their bank cards to buy luxurious gadgets and gold and even tried to entry social safety and retirement accounts.
Based on the indictment, Phelps met one man in July 2021, went on lunch dates with him and that November ordered lunch to his home and slipped him a prescription drug.
Whereas he was “principally unconscious” for about 5 days, Phelps gained entry to his accounts and stole his iPhone, iPads, driver’s license and financial institution playing cards, in accordance with the indictment. She additionally allegedly accessed his E-Commerce account and bought Apple inventory value about $3.3 million, although she was unable to withdraw that cash.
Authorities imagine Phelps used fashionable relationship apps together with Tinder, Hinge and Bumble to search out her targets. The lads had been lonely and in search of companionship and went on a number of dates with Phelps earlier than she stealthily gave them sedatives, in accordance with Evans.
“It’s of us which might be out in search of love that bumped into one thing much more sinister,” he mentioned.
Phelps, a twin citizen of Mexico and the U.S., had been on the FBI’s radar for a few years, in accordance with Evans. He declined to touch upon her prison historical past.
The Related Press left messages searching for remark with Mexico’s Overseas Affairs Ministry and Legal professional Normal’s Workplace.
A number of of the victims’ kinfolk known as authorities after they had been unable to contact their family members, Evans mentioned.
One girl was unable to achieve her father the day after he went on a date with Phelps in Guadalajara, Mexico, in Could 2022, in accordance with court docket data. The following day Mexican police discovered him lifeless on the lavatory ground of his dwelling. Phelps then used an account belonging to the sufferer to buy a gold coin, together with different transactions, the indictment alleges.
The FBI is conscious of extra alleged victims within the U.S. and Mexico, Evans mentioned, and is making details about the case public, together with suspected aliases, in hopes of figuring out others who “fell sufferer to her scams and whose belief in her could have price them their life.”
The FBI can also be working with the Division of Justice and Mexican authorities to safe her extradition.
If convicted on each cost, which embrace seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud, six counts of financial institution fraud, three counts of identification theft and one depend of kidnapping, Phelps faces a most sentence of life in jail, Fahami mentioned.
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Bedayn reported from Denver, and Govindarao from Phoenix.
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