Florida man and accomplice who scammed Uber out of more than $1M in elaborate scheme arrested on August 22
PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: A Florida man and his accomplice were arrested on August 22 for scamming Uber for more than $1 million.
The two suspects, Trayon Morgan, 21, of Lauderhill, and Roy Blackwood, 38, of Sunrise were arrested on charges of organized scheme to defraud and grand theft.
How did the Florida men cheat Uber?
Morgan and Blackwood primarily operated in the Broward and Palm Beach Counties while defrauding Uber by using the Uber Eats app.
The authorities of the Broward Sheriff's Office (BSO) said Morgan would act as the customer and courier, while Blackwood would be the driver in the elaborate scam they carried out on numerous occasions, per CBS 12.
Starting in January 2022, the swindlers operated in such a way that Morgan would at first place a grocery order as a customer through the app under a fake account. He would then proceed to accept the orders as the courier too.
At that point, Uber would provide Morgan with a pre-authorized and pre-loaded credit card to make the purchase. As the customer then, he would cancel the order.
Using the Uber credit card, Morgan would then go on to buy a gift card. On most of these occasions, Blackwood acted as the driver and took Morgan to different stores of Walgreens.
How were the Florida con men arrested?
The investigators said that on January 24, the detectives conducted a surveillance operation to catch Morgan and Blackwood’s actions.
They saw them traveling to a total of 27 locations of different Walgreens locations and committing fraud. On a single day, they robbed Uber of $5,013.28 through their sly modus operandi.
Per the deputies, Morgan created numerous fake accounts by stealing driver's license information from many Uber drivers and morphing his own photo to create fake ids.
The deputies detected Morgan’s involvement with the help of Uber and several investigative techniques.
After issuing an arrest warrant for the two men on August 7, the Palm Beach Gardens police arrested Blackwood on August 16 and Morgan on August 22 in Tamarac, and charged them with an organized scheme to defraud and grand theft.