Police bust alleged fake call center run out of rental property in Miami-Dade; 11 facing charges
Eleven people are facing charges after police said they used a rental property to host a fake call center in Miami-Dade County.
Investigators said they found signs of a fake call center in the living room, with laptops, phones, and a television running audio from YouTube to mimic operations.
Police said they also found four guns and marijuana in plain view. Multiple IDs and driver's licenses belonging to victims and narcotics were also found.
"We found about 20 cell phones about 20 computers, and this is all things were going to have to go one by one to see the people they were calling who they were calling and anybody who had fallen victim to these schemes," said Miami Police Department Public Information Officer Michael Vega.
Ten of the suspects appeared in court on Thursday, a day after gang units from several law enforcement agencies executed a warrant at the rented home on Southwest 162nd Street.
"Defrauding people by acting as a bank, acting as a credit card company to gather information from a victim and once they had that they would clean them out of their savings and their bank accounts," Vega said.
Vega said the gang is connected to crimes across South Florida.
"This is a known gang that are committing shootings, that are committing thefts, that are committing crimes in the City of Miami and not only the city of Miami but all over Miami-Dade County and Broward County and we're not surprised if there will be another county involved too," Vega said.
Neighbors told CBS News Miami that the street isn't zoned for short-term rentals. They said this group had been there about a month, and always had multiple cars parked out front, but now frustrated and scared by what they saw next door.
"I stay in the house a lot because of that, I'm not comfortable going in my backyard and definitely not my front yard," one neighbor said.
Miami police said if you were scammed, call police or Crime Stoppers.
Judge Mindy Glazer compared the alleged scheme to the movie The Beekeeper, which follows a man seeking revenge against scammers who defrauded victims, and called it a spoofing scheme aimed at stealing people's hard‑earned money.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story identified the rental property as an Airbnb, according to information provided by law enforcement. An Airbnb spokesperson clarified to CBS News Miami that this property was not listed on the rental platform at the time of the incident.