Fraud schemes very rarely have an end game. As many as there are out there though it seems that they are hardly ever figured out. Why? Because there are a few simple rules that must be followed and anyone with half a brain would realize that breaking them will get you caught, and fast.
One Worcester man recently found this out the hard way. 27-year-old Brandon Brouillard was charged with one count of bank fraud and detained following an initial appearance before a U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge. This all started on April 17, 2021 when Brouillard arrived at a Chevrolet dealership in Norwood, Massachusetts. After test driving a 2021 Chevrolet Camaro valued at $83k, he allegedly agreed to purchase the car. According to charging documents, he paid for the vehicle with a cashier’s check from his account made out to the dealership and took possession of the car immediately.
It took about 2-days for the dealership to realize that the cashiers check that was reportedly provided to them from Brouillard was from a frozen account. While any one else might have gone ahead and alerted the authorities, the dealership instead called Brouillard, who promised to wire the funds immediately. Seven days later, the police were alerted that someone had attempted to wire $83k to a Chevrolet dealership via email.
Assuming that the dealership did everything by the books, this genius supposedly provided the dealership with his ID, proof of insurance, signed a sales contract, and applied for a vehicle registration to the state and then tried to fraudulently wire the money from an unnamed victim's account by telling the bank to wire the money to the dealership that had all of his information. All this is just icing on the cake of course, because it is estimated that Brouillard stole a total $500k from his victim in large purchases, all shipped to his personal address.
