ROCKLEDGE, FLORIDA: A Florida man has been arrested after attempting to fraudulently sell more than 20 million non-existent N95 masks to a Canadian healthcare company at the height of the Covid pandemic.
Esmeraldo Enrique, 79, was arrested on Wednesday, August 16 on one count of organized fraud after he offered to sell masks that he never had as part of a $20 million deal, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Authorities noted that the Florida man was doing business as Enrique Technologies & Trading LLC in July 2020 when he agreed to sell millions of masks to the Canadian company Gray & Simcoe Health Corporation, according to Florida Today.
How did Enrique fool the healthcare company?
In the initial stage of the deal, Enrique allegedly asked the company to transfer $1.8 million to an account in Cairo, Egypt, where the nonexistent masks were kept, along with a $500,000 down payment to him.
The Florida man later offered to sell the company $40 million worth of masks, which did not even exist.
Florida investigators, working with the Department of Homeland Security, the US Secret Service, Egyptian authorities, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, eventually determined Enrique had actually been working with a known scam artist in Egypt to help carry out the scheme.
Enrique, according to FDLE, looked for victims until he located the Canadian business, then he made a number of false proposals for them to buy varying numbers of N95 masks.
When the masks weren’t delivered, the company attempted to contact Enrique several times for a refund, but they never received one.
The Florida man was arrested Wednesday morning and booked into the Brevard County jail on one count of organized fraud. He has since been released on a $10,000 bond.
Similar Incident
Enrique’s arrest came just a few days after another Florida man was arrested on charges of fraud and theft after allegedly registering a stolen Porsche from the renowned Sarasota Classic Car Museum.
Daniel Boyce of Sarasota was originally arrested in July 2023 for failing to appear for a grand theft auto charge but was later identified as a person of interest in the luxury car burglary.
The overnight burglary took place on June 14 when a brown 1977 Porsche 930 Turbo, valued at $250,000, was reported missing from the Sarasota Classic Car Museum.
An anonymous caller gave the Sarasota Classic Car Museum details that Boyce was seen with a brown Porsche at an unknown warehouse. The information was further relayed to Sarasota Police detectives. Detectives eventually located the stolen Porsche with a fraudulently obtained title and tag.
Boyce is being held at Sarasota County Jail without a bond with an arraignment hearing scheduled for September 22, 2023.
