A Florida woman who allegedly tried to use her mother’s identity to fraudulently claim hurricane relief funds, blamed Botox for looking younger than the picture on her identification card.
Florida woman caught up in hurricane scam
The Bradenton Police Department stated that 44-year-old Veronica Torres applied for aid related to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, asserting she had to leave her home due to storm damage.
Her application was approved for $7,967 through the City of Bradenton’s Hurricane Disaster Assistance Program.
When the Torres arrived to collect her check on November 14, a city employee noticed she appeared much younger than her ID suggested.
Police accused Torres of using “her mother’s name, driver’s license, and Social Security details” for the claim.
While her mother’s age wasn’t disclosed, Torres attributed her significantly younger look to “Botox treatments.”
The explanation didn’t satisfy the employee, who asked her to return the next day and alerted the authorities.
Florida woman arrested
Upon her return, Torres was taken into custody for filing a false claim. She was charged with public aid fraud, a third-degree felony.
Torres was released on bail after her arrest, when she posted a $2,500 bond on November 16.
In Florida, over 100 scammers including at least 41 undocumented immigrants, have been arrested for allegedly looting and defrauding hurricane victims.
Anti-looting patrols in Pinellas County apprehended 45 suspects facing 68 charges, among them armed robbery, burglary, trespassing, and vandalism, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said at a press conference.
“They’re going into people’s homes, they’re taking stuff, they’re rummaging through their things,” Gualtieri mentioned.
Another operation led to 58 arrests targeting unlicensed contractors accused of scamming victims out of $250 million for work they had no intention of performing.
Pinellas County, which is just West of Tampa on the Gulf Coast of Central, Florida, was hit hard by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the early fall.
“This is the epitome of people trying to exploit others when they’re down and when they’re out, and they’re trying to rebuild and they’ve got nothing,” Gualtieri told reporters.
Migrants behind hurricane looting
Of the 45 arrested by anti-looting patrols throughout the trail of islands that act as a barrier for the county, 41 were confirmed to be undocumented immigrants.
Gualtieri noted that most of the suspects who were taken into police custody were from South or Central America.
“People offering to do work on their property, but, in some cases, have no intention of doing the work. In other cases, are unqualified to do the work and, in all of these cases, are unlicensed to do the work,” Gualtieri added.
He pointed out that the suspects had managed to scam victims out of over $250 million in home reconstruction jobs. Gualtieri noted one suspect even had business cards to impersonate a legitimate contractor.
He said that his deputies had discovered 196 people loitering in beach towns that they did not have cause to arrest and noted that more than 83% of them were undocumented immigrants.
“So, we made contact with them and told them to get out,” Gualtieri stated. “We’ve never seen anything of this magnitude before.”
We’ve never seen this influx of people from out of the area that are clearly just here to steal and to pilfer and to do bad things and to target these vulnerable people.”
He also noted that almost all of the the people they arrested during the operation had lengthy criminal histories.
“As the Pinellas beaches recover, we are going to continue these patrols and arrest everyone we can who is stealing from the vulnerable victims of two back-to-back storms that have devastated our community,” the sherrif asserted.
Extra deputies will continue patrolling barrier islands day and night to deter unwelcome visitors lingering in an effort to exploit victims of the hurricanes.
“We are now focused on protecting our residents and our businesses who are desperate to rebuild and get on with their lives,” he concluded.
