- A former roommate of George Santos claimed the congressman was in charge of the ATM fraud scheme.
- The former roommate claimed that Santos taught and provided “all the material” for the plan.
- Santos had previously told friends he was an “informant” in the case, Politico reported.
A former roommate of Congressman George Santos claims that a New York legislator was “responsible” for credit card fraud that took place outside Florida. According to an affidavit obtained and first reported by Politico,.
Former roommate Gustavo Ribeiro Torella was deported to Brazil after being convicted of involvement in the scheme in 2017. his lettersent Wednesday by his attorney and addressed to the FBI, the Eastern District of New York, and the U.S. Secret Service.
“Santos taught me how to skim card information and how to clone cards,” Trelha said in an affidavit. “He gave me all the materials and showed me how to install skimming equipment and cameras on his ATM machines.”
An attorney for Santos, Joseph Murray, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the declaration, Torella met Santos around 2016 when he started renting a room from Santos’ apartment in Florida. At the time, Torella knew Santos as Anthony Devolder. The Congressman’s full name is George Anthony Devolder Santos.
It was around that time, according to Torella, that Santos began teaching him about the inner workings of ATMs and credit card schemes.
“Santos had a warehouse on Kirkman Road in Orlando, Florida,” Torella claimed. “He had a lot of materials: parts, printers, blank ATMs and credit cards to paint and engrave stolen accounts and personal information. They gave me some of the parts for illegally skimming my card information.”
The attorney who helped Torella file the affidavit did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
When Torella was arrested in 2017, the former roommate claimed in a statement that Santos visited him in a Seattle prison.
“He told me in prison not to say anything about him,” Trelha wrote. “Santos threatened my friends in Florida not to say he was my boss.” .”
Torrella’s declaration appears to contradict Santos’ previous characterization of not only the relationship between the two, but the congressman’s role in the scheme.
In an interview with PoliticoTiffany Bogosian, a lawyer friend of Santos’s, said Santos told her his role in the plan was that of an “informant.”
Santos also told a Seattle judge at the Torella hearing that his roommate was actually a “family friend.”
Torella spent seven months in prison before being deported to Brazil in 2018.
“Santos didn’t help me get out of prison,” Torella claimed. “He also stole the money I had raised for my bail.”
Santos’ freshman term has been plagued by scandals including his elaborate lies, GoFundMe fraud and larceny charges dropped in 2020, some of which are part of an ongoing investigation. is.
Reported by Politico How Santos was indicted in 2017 for theft and accused of writing back thousands of dollars’ worth of checks that were supposed to be sent to an Amish dog breeder in Pennsylvania. After Santos claimed his checkbook was stolen, the charges were dismissed and expunged from his records, Politico reported.