Scammer steals thousands of dollars worth of laptops from South Florida business – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports


(WSVN) – A South Florida business has become the victim of a highly sophisticated scam. Kevin Ozebek exposes the scheme in tonight’s 7 Investigates.

Jake Luther’s company supplies items big and small to a host of clients.

Jake Luther: “Anything from toilet paper at your local museum or sandblasting a trailer for the military.”

So Jake was ecstatic when he got an email from a man saying he was Rodney Cartwright, the senior procurement executive at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Jake Luther: “It was from a dot-gov email address. From there it says, ‘We’d like you to bid on the opportunity to supply us with laptops for a new office expansion.’ We looked him up, we looked up the address, we looked up the National Gallery of Art. Everything lined up.”

Since the museum houses one of the most prestigious art collections in the country, Jake jumped at the chance.

He replied with a bid to send 63 laptops for $97,900.

A few days later, he got an email saying the bid was approved.

Jake Luther: “I was planning for my wedding, so we had a bunch of expenses coming up, so to me, being a Christian guy, this is a blessing from God.”

From his Cutler Bay office, Jake ordered the computers and sent them to a warehouse in Nashua, New Hampshire.

He was told it was the gallery’s distribution center.

Jake Luther: “During this time, he came back to me, and he was like, ‘You know, there’s a chance that we’re doing another expansion. It’s our final one. We need to order like another 60 more units.’”

So Jake sent 60 more laptops for $116,000 to Nashua.

He then focused on his upcoming wedding.

Jake Luther: “When I got back from my honeymoon, we’re about the 30-day mark where this contract should be paid out through wire transfer, which is relatively typical for these type of deals.”

But the money never came, and Jake stopped getting responses from the man he thought was Rodney Cartwright.

Jake Luther: “It’s one of my lowest emotional moments. It was like I could feel my head pounding, I could hear ringing in my ears. I immediately got on my knees and didn’t know what to do.”

Jake then tracked down the real Rodney Cartwright at the museum and…

Source…