She Tried Buying a $100,000 Tesla With a Fake ID… Then Police Opened Her Suitcase

[00:00:00]She has.

[00:00:00]>> Yeah. Ethan, you want to come to the office quick? We'll show we got >> Free. Is that free?

[00:00:04]>> It is. We haven't told you. I'll show you what we have.

[00:00:14]>> Because you could see the license feels it's not right. And when you start see the watermarks, it's missing a watermark here.

[00:00:21]>> Um, we contacted our loss prevention department. They say this information is correct, but from what they can see, that's not >> Yeah. So, the license is a fake.

[00:00:34]>> Yeah, you can see. I mean, CLEAR AS FAKE.

[00:00:37]>> CLEAR AS [laughter] um they went and they got a cashier's check. I mean, the cashier's check looks legit. I don't know what this company is because she's buying it personally under her, right?

[00:00:47]>> But obviously, you can tell we're not going to deliver it. But because it's a fake, they did say for us to contact you guys.

[00:00:57]>> Hello. It starts with a signature. A single loan officer at a Florida car dealership staring down at a driver's license that just doesn't feel right in his hands. No embossing where there should be one. A missing watermark.

[00:01:12]Small details the kind most people would never notice, but to a trained eye, they're a red flag. Within minutes, loss prevention is called in. The verdict comes back fast. The license is fake.

[00:01:25]And sitting in the lobby waiting to close a deal on a brand new Tesla Model X is the woman who handed it over.

[00:01:34]>> Talking about what's going on.

[00:01:36]>> You from here?

[00:01:37]>> No.

[00:01:38]>> No. This you here visiting? What you doing?

[00:01:42]>> Yeah.

[00:01:43]>> Give me a minute.

[00:01:45]>> Huh?

[00:01:45]>> She did give us this the check. I don't know if that's something you actually got to verify.

[00:02:03]>> No, >> so maybe she got that fake ID.

[00:02:08]>> I think it's just a fake ID, but everything else might have been for somebody. I don't know. Oh, >> because the there's like a company name on there, >> but the car she's trying to get was in just her name.

[00:02:18]>> So, I don't know what the deal is, but I don't know if you guys want to take that.

[00:02:21]>> But the check is from her or from the company.

[00:02:22]>> You can see it's from the company.

[00:02:25]>> Okay. I want to read you something.

[00:02:26]Okay.

[00:02:26]>> Okay.

[00:02:27]>> All right. You have the right to remain silent. Having this in mind, are you willing to answer any questions?

[00:02:32]>> Okay. You you speak foreign English?

[00:02:35]>> Yes.

[00:02:38]>> Who is this person?

[00:02:40]>> This is you. Okay. Where did you get this driver's license from?

[00:02:43]>> Um, from government.

[00:02:46]>> What government?

[00:02:47]>> So, ship from my home.

[00:02:49]>> It was shipped to your home.

[00:02:51]>> In order to get Have you had a Florida driver's license before?

[00:02:54]>> No.

[00:02:54]>> What the dealership doesn't yet know is that this isn't a simple case of identity theft. It's the surface of something far larger. Officers are called in and the woman's softspoken, evasive, claiming to be visiting from out of town is reader writes. Her English is broken. Her answers rehearsed just enough to sound plausible. She says the license came from the government, shipped straight to her home. But Florida doesn't mail out driver's licenses to firsttime applicants. It's the first lie of many.

[00:03:26]>> Where did you pick the check up from?

[00:03:29]>> From the business account.

[00:03:32]>> From the business account. But what bank?

[00:03:35]>> Bank of America.

[00:03:36]>> Okay. Whose business account is it a fun? Is it your name? Somebody else's name?

[00:03:41]>> Somebody else.

[00:03:42]>> Okay. Who owns the company?

[00:03:44]>> Um, >> since it's under a company's name, like where's this this check? They gave you that check to get a Tesla.

[00:03:51]>> Yes.

[00:03:52]>> Who who gave you the check to get a Tesla? What?

[00:03:54]>> My friend.

[00:03:55]>> Your who?

[00:03:56]>> My friend.

[00:03:57]>> Your friend? What's your friend's name?

[00:04:01]>> You have a phone number for him?

[00:04:03]>> You don't have a phone number for your friend?

[00:04:05]>> Yeah. Can I please know what's going on?

[00:04:07]>> Then comes the check. a cashier's check for over $100,000 drawn from a business account, not personal, a company. She claims a friend gave it to her to buy the car. When asked for a name, a phone number, anything she has nothing, no contact, no explanation, just a woman with someone else's fortune and no way to prove where it came from.

[00:04:32]>> This is is not a real driver's license.

[00:04:35]If you said you got this from the government, that's what you're claiming.

[00:04:38]>> Yeah.

[00:04:39]>> So, this is known.

[00:04:41]>> Okay. Okay. And when did you get this?

[00:04:45]>> Uh last week.

[00:04:49]>> Last week. This is not a a real license.

[00:04:51]This is is fake as we can see. And this driver's license here, this number, it comes back to somebody that's totally different.

[00:05:02]your ID so I can make sure.

[00:05:06]>> How do I know if this one is real?

[00:05:08][laughter] >> Officers press further on the license itself. The DL number doesn't match her.

[00:05:14]It belongs to a completely different person. Whoever built this fake didn't invent a name from scratch. They stole one, attached her photograph to it, and hoped it would pass. It almost did.

[00:05:27]Investigators start connecting the timeline. The day before, she tried an electronic funds transfer for $10,000 and hit an error logging into the bank's app. Frustrated, she withdrew cash instead and returned today with a cashier's check. A second attempt to push the same transaction through by any means necessary. It's the behavior of someone racing against time, not someone making an honest purchase. Her story of being a tourist from California doesn't hold up cleanly either. She says she flew in for vacation, intended to buy the Tesla here instead of at home, and would have it shipped back. It's an unusual plan for a tourist, but not for someone trying to put distance between a fraudulent purchase and the people who might trace it.

[00:06:15]>> Passport, but she got blonde hair. Look, >> look at her nose. She is saying >> the nose look alike.

[00:06:25]>> Yeah, she wearing wig.

[00:06:28]>> The nose. Say the nose.

[00:06:29]>> This is her name.

[00:06:30]>> This is her name. That's what she name.

[00:06:32]>> Skyler Medina. She Chinese. That's not a Chinese name.

[00:06:39]>> You can change.

[00:06:40]>> She She talk like she Chinese.

[00:06:43]Long enough.

[00:06:45]I don't know that black p. That's your wallet, >> huh? That's your wallet or that's not your wallet?

[00:06:51]>> Uh, I don't know. Where's the toilet?

[00:06:54]>> Oh, no, no, no. It's here. I got >> Oh, it's right here. You got it?

[00:06:58]>> Yeah, I got it.

[00:06:59]>> You got it.

[00:07:00]>> Okay.

[00:07:01]>> Yeah. And I have one in there. So, three in here.

[00:07:06]>> You got a ID in there.

[00:07:09]Come on.

[00:07:09]>> I can't I Okay. So, why does your Florida driver's license have a different name than these names here?

[00:07:28]>> Uh, that's no money.

[00:07:29]>> That's not you.

[00:07:30]>> That's no money.

[00:07:32]>> What's not yours? The Florida driver's license.

[00:07:33]>> No money.

[00:07:34]>> Okay. But you just told me you got it from the government. So now it's not your license.

[00:07:38]>> Came in the mail. She said >> it's his license.

[00:07:40]>> No, no, no, no.

[00:07:42]>> Okay. Whose own is it?

[00:07:44]>> I don't know.

[00:07:45]>> Okay. How did you get it?

[00:07:46]>> Just someone came and then asked me to to buy the car.

[00:07:52]>> Someone did what?

[00:07:53]>> Someone gave me.

[00:07:54]>> Okay. Someone gave it to you.

[00:07:56]>> They can't just give it to you with your picture on it.

[00:07:59]>> Uh they put my photo.

[00:08:03]>> Yeah. This is mine.

[00:08:05]>> Then the wallet comes out inside. Not one identity, but several. A passport under one name, a California ID under another. The passport photo shows a completely different woman. Blonde hair, different features. Officers quickly realize she's wearing a wig. The name on this new identity, Skyler Medina, doesn't match anything she's given so far.

[00:08:29]Piece by piece, the fabricated persona she built is unraveling in real time.

[00:08:36]>> How did you get the the driver's license?

[00:08:38]>> Someone shift to me. Actually, I don't know the person.

[00:08:42]>> You don't know the person? Okay.

[00:08:43]>> It's just online.

[00:08:45]>> So, you got Okay. So, tell me the story.

[00:08:47]How did you get to get online to get it?

[00:08:49]Did you know the person or >> just someone friends? So, I don't know the person. My friend five.

[00:08:55]>> And you purchased it or gave it to you or how did you get it?

[00:08:58]>> They mailed it to me.

[00:09:00]>> Okay. For free?

[00:09:02]>> No. Pay?

[00:09:03]>> You pay? How much did you pay?

[00:09:04]>> Uh $100.

[00:09:07]>> $100.

[00:09:08]>> It was $100.

[00:09:09]>> Okay. And when was that?

[00:09:11]>> I think last week. Did you grab the check?

[00:09:14]>> Yeah, we got it.

[00:09:15]>> We'll take it.

[00:09:15]>> Okay.

[00:09:16]>> One more. Why were you trying to purchase the Tesla with that name?

[00:09:20]Uh cuz I think it has the good credit.

[00:09:26]>> Because it has good credit. And you don't think you have good credit?

[00:09:29]>> Mine is 76 700 because I don't know how to do the lawyer, so I don't have the good credit.

[00:09:38]>> When asked directly how she obtained the fraudulent license, her story finally cracks. She admits someone she's never met mailed it to her, paid for, arranged entirely online for the price of $100. A stolen identity reduced to a transaction cheaper than the average grocery run.

[00:09:57]>> Did you grab the check?

[00:09:59]>> Oh, yeah. We got it. We'll take it.

[00:10:00]>> Okay.

[00:10:01]>> One more. Why were you trying to purchase the Tesla with that name?

[00:10:05]>> Oh, cuz I think it has the good credit.

[00:10:11]>> Because it has good credit. And you don't think you have good credit?

[00:10:14]>> Mine is 7 6 700 because I don't know how to do the lawyer. So I don't have the good credit.

[00:10:22]>> Okay. But 700 is good credit.

[00:10:24]>> So mine is 67 something.

[00:10:27]>> Okay. And when asked the question that matters most, why steal someone else's name to buy a car? Her answer is almost disarmingly simple. Better credit. Her own score, she says, sits in the high 600s. Not bad by most standards, but not good enough apparently to secure six figures in financing without raising questions. So, she borrowed someone else's financial reputation instead.

[00:10:51]>> Yeah, we got to pop this open. All right.

[00:10:57]>> Hold on. All right. Hey, do you have anything in your luggage that will harm us or anything like that?

[00:11:03]>> What's harm us?

[00:11:04]>> Huh?

[00:11:04]>> What is harm us?

[00:11:06]>> Your luggage harm harm hurt us?

[00:11:08]>> No. Of course not. You can't open. Of course not.

[00:11:12]>> Okay.

[00:11:23]>> Oh no.

[00:11:27]>> Uh-uh. She can't have this.

[00:11:29]>> Mhm.

[00:11:30]>> These fraudulent documents.

[00:11:32]>> They blink.

[00:11:33]>> She can't have none of this.

[00:11:38]>> Nah, dog. They got to come out. It's too much.

[00:11:41]>> Yeah. Tell them to recall that she got fake titles. A bunch of them. Hey S, they got to come out. She got all these fraudulent documents, man. They She can't hide this >> fake title.

[00:11:51]>> She got a bunch of them for vehicles.

[00:11:53]Yeah.

[00:11:55]>> Yeah.

[00:11:56]>> That's another passport.

[00:11:57]>> That's her passport. Yeah.

[00:11:58]>> Well, I got passport.

[00:11:59]>> She got another fake.

[00:12:01]>> Okay. This is her. So, I asked if she got a social security number. She told me no. So, this is probably >> That's her real name. That's fake.

[00:12:07]That's somebody else's.

[00:12:08]>> Man, you might want to send somebody else. Man, this lady is in possession of a whole bunch of fake stuff. She got a whole bunch of titles for vehicles.

[00:12:15]>> Tell them it's uh titles for vehicles.

[00:12:18]>> What happens next turns a routine fraud stop into something far more serious.

[00:12:23]Officers open her luggage and inside isn't clothing for a weekend trip. It's paperwork. Vehicle titles, dozens of them. Some counted, some still being tallied, eventually totaling more than 20. later confirmed at over 30. Another passport documents connected to bank transfers exceeding $38,000.

[00:12:45]This isn't a woman who made one bad decision. This is a woman equipped for an operation.

[00:12:51]>> So those have cars in them?

[00:12:53]>> No, they blank.

[00:12:55]>> Yeah.

[00:12:56]>> You can fill this out.

[00:13:00]You >> fill this out. I can go take put your card information in here. I got batteries.

[00:13:05]>> This is a no no dog. We cannot get this unless you go to the DMV.

[00:13:11]I see she in possession of this for state. Yeah, this for state of uh California. Dog, you can't get you got to they don't issue this. I used to live in Cali. They don't to get this dog. You got to go to the DMV. She don't stole it.

[00:13:24]>> The officers on scene put it plainly.

[00:13:26]This isn't her first time. Someone this composed, this practiced under pressure has likely run this exact play before and gotten away with it. Her quiet, unassuming demeanor isn't incidental.

[00:13:37]It's camouflage. The perfect cover for someone hiding a small fortune in stolen paperwork inside a rolling suitcase.

[00:13:45]>> Probably swing by Bank of America, too.

[00:13:47]Cuz if all this she got all this, I don't think none of that belong to her.

[00:13:52]>> Legit. You say >> it looked legit, but but it looked like she did some type of big transfer like 38,000. Yeah, she took it out of her account. So when they do a cash check, it just came out of account, but she like right before then, it looked like she transferred 38,000 to that account.

[00:14:05]She getting this from somewhere cuz this guy this got sent to her San Francisco. You cannot you cannot be in possession of them type of items, man. That come from this that come from the state.

[00:14:18]>> And she got several phones that are on service.

[00:14:23]Seven phones.

[00:14:24]>> That's like six or six.

[00:14:26]>> I know.

[00:14:26]>> So, I have five plus one.

[00:14:29]>> You sure? Cuz we don't went through this twice.

[00:14:30]>> No, no, no. Cuz remember that little box had two in there.

[00:14:35]>> Yeah. She just did this transaction posted on 22. Check amount. 38250.

[00:14:40]>> So, we got to make sure she didn't somebody's account, too.

[00:14:43]>> Yeah. That's why I said they got to come out. This is a lot.

[00:14:45]>> You used to work in that unit?

[00:14:47]>> No, I I went to the fraud training and all that. I I remember I was doing a fraud with the gang members.

[00:14:52]>> You see, the thing is she got a $10,000 check. We don't know where that came from. I looked up the company. It's a company from Montana.

[00:14:58]>> A closer look at her financial trail reveals the mechanics of the scheme days before her arrest, roughly $38,000 was wired into her account from an outside source. She let it sit just long enough to clear, then withdrew it as a cashier's check. clean, legitimatook looking, nearly impossible to trace back to its true origin without a deep audit.

[00:15:22]It's a laundering technique as old as banking itself, dressed up for the modern DM VI counter.

[00:15:28]>> Best stuff when it pop up, she should pop up first as the owner. But she telling me uh Ken Gmer, which is a agent that worked there, that's what I seen on that site. What she doing? Nah, this car ain't going with her. this car, she was gonna go back, resell it at a high value, have the documents. They were never gonna be able to track that car.

[00:15:47]That car gonna be long gone.

[00:15:49]>> That car probably was getting shipped overseas. That's why she That's why she go register the car in California.

[00:15:53]She'll already have this stuff. She'll type it up on this and then probably go back and register in California.

[00:15:59]>> She was getting a container.

[00:16:00]>> Bingo. So, you got to have this document to say >> to the to the people to the shipping company and it get shipped overseas.

[00:16:06]>> So, she probably buy this car to ship it to China.

[00:16:09]>> Yeah. or wherever she originally from.

[00:16:11]>> Yeah, >> I don't know if they got their own electric car.

[00:16:14]>> They do, but it's cheaper.

[00:16:16]>> They ain't got no Tesla.

[00:16:17]>> They got a better one than Tesla over there.

[00:16:19]>> The crazy part is remember this. The prices dropped on these. Remember all these sunk, >> but whatever it is, she going to get some big money for it.

[00:16:26]>> They using her as a as a kid to get a pick.

[00:16:30]>> Now, the picture investigators are building comes into full focus. The car was never meant to stay in the country.

[00:16:36]With a stack of falsified titles and export paperwork already in hand, the plan was to register the Tesla, then quietly ship it overseas, likely bound for China, where demand for these vehicles remains high, and the paper trail that it dies at the port. She wasn't the mastermind. She was the operative, a trusted piece in a larger machine sent to do the one job someone had to physically show up for. Yeah, like our last mission and when we send her the all the information like we have an email thread with them and they they said like she was like part of like a network of individual that goes around like to different Tesla location.

[00:17:13]>> Okay. It's some some not based out of Montana but she lives in California >> but she's actually from China.

[00:17:18]>> Yeah.

[00:17:19]>> And they're not just doing Tesla. I think that she's in possession of Hey, how you doing?

[00:17:24]>> Good.

[00:17:24]>> She's in possession of a bunch of titles.

[00:17:26]>> Well, you can come in here. Yeah, >> sir. So, we saw you with it. She's got the titles, right? Yeah, she got a lot of titles.

[00:17:32]>> She's trying to take us to the port.

[00:17:33]>> Bingo. So, so what they're doing is they're they're purchasing these cars.

[00:17:37]y'all loan. Whatever y'all give her, >> they they're redoing them. And at the port, you need those uh renew and that's that's where she >> um and then that's why the 10,000 check it's legit, but it's from >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, prior to that, on the second she went to the bank, she had um like almost 40,000 wired to her.

[00:17:57]That's why it took so long because for the bank to clear it take like 5 6 days 30 days once they figure out it's fraudulent. So that's why she was moving like quick.

[00:18:06]>> She wanted to get it quick. Yeah. She put the order in Saturday night. Tried to get it yesterday and then walk out.

[00:18:11]>> Speaking of him, he says like a network of them going around hitting Teslas.

[00:18:15]>> Uh so so what we know uh for this individual is >> a call back to the dealership's loss prevention team confirms the scale of what they're dealing with. This wasn't an isolated attempt. Records show three prior orders, all flagged and cancelled before they shipped, each involving a different Asian individual, each following the exact same pattern, falsified identification, third-party financing, and a rushed pickup.

[00:18:44]Investigators now believe they're looking at a coordinated ring, hitting Tesla dealerships, specifically likely for the vehicle's resale value and its status as a prime export target.

[00:18:55]>> I'm like, whoa.

[00:18:56]>> Yo, she in possession of some stuff that you you you only could get from the state.

[00:19:00]>> That's right.

[00:19:01]>> So, how'd she get that?

[00:19:02]>> I have no idea. But they >> So, the crazy part, I looked at the FedEx document and it came from South San Francisco, California. And the company who cut her a check is in Montana, but they service San Francisco, California. So, I don't know who this Ken Gmer guy is online. I don't know if he helping them out, whatever.

[00:19:19]>> Yeah.

[00:19:20]>> But it's like a a big company that that that uh gives money to shell companies.

[00:19:25]>> So, I believe she got some form of a shell company or a fake company.

[00:19:28]>> That's kind of what it made sense.

[00:19:30]>> So, now we about to call a W cuz supposedly she was standing at the W.

[00:19:33]That's why she got her bags and she was like, "Oh, it got too expensive." So, I was leaving. I fig >> we we we figured something was up with it when when we saw the idea and then when we saw the check that's when we really knew >> we kind of figured she was either going to the port or dropping to somebody and she was about to take off on a flight from what LP has given us.

[00:19:50]>> That was the one vehicle they were close to taking possession cuz the other ones they blocked it out.

[00:19:55]>> So this one was the only one she was close >> that we know of. Is there more? I don't know.

[00:19:59]>> It might be more cuz uh she too comfortable doing what she's doing.

[00:20:03]>> Yeah.

[00:20:04]>> Like for her to come in like that.

[00:20:06]That's comfortable.

[00:20:06]>> No.

[00:20:07]>> Now we about to go to Bank of America to see how she >> how she got that >> cashier. Okay.

[00:20:11]>> Cuz it cuz the the amount that got sent I'm like man if you send 40,000 unless you did a loan or something like that.

[00:20:18]>> Yeah.

[00:20:20]>> Yeah.

[00:20:20]>> I was going to say we just got it here.

[00:20:22]But who knows what the deal.

[00:20:23]>> Detectives pieced together her likely exit strategy. Bags packed, a hotel checkout already in motion. She wasn't planning to stay in Florida long.

[00:20:33]Whether she intended to deliver the car to a shipping contact or simply disappear onto the next flight out, one thing is certain, she was moving fast.

[00:20:42]And this dealership stop was never meant to be her last stop of the