Coral Springs man scams elderly woman, leads deputies on I-95 chase, cops say

A Coral Springs man was involved in a scam to convince an elderly woman to withdraw money from her bank account and hand it over to Uber drivers she believed were “FBI couriers,” according to investigators.

Jimmy Altidor, 34, turned himself in on May 18, nearly two weeks after an attempt to arrest him led to him ramming patrol vehicles and setting off a police chase, according to deputies.

Investigators with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said the scheme Altidor was involved in mirrored a pattern they had been monitoring: a fraudster will call a victim posing as a representative of their bank, then tell them they need to withdraw money due to fraudulent activity detected on their account.

The scammer will send an Uber driver or a courier to the victim to hand over the cash to be delivered to the fraudster.

On May 5, the day deputies tried to arrest Altidor, a representative from Uber contacted detectives to report that an Uber driver was sent to pick up money from an elderly woman in Deerfield Beach and deliver it to a person waiting in a parking lot in Miami, according to Altidor’s arrest affidavit.

Investigators said the person who requested the package delivery trip was Altidor, who had uploaded his driver’s license to the Uber app but had changed his display name 10 times in seven months and had requested rides in a handful of states.

Detectives headed to a Domino’s parking lot in Miami that afternoon to beat the Uber driver there and set up surveillance, according to the affidavit.

They watched the Uber pull into the lot and park, then Altidor got out of another car and walked over to the Uber vehicle as the driver handed over the package, detectives said.

That’s when deputies moved in on Altidor, but he spotted them before they could apprehend him. He got in his car and drove over the sidewalk, forcing two deputies to jump out of the way to avoid being hit, the report says.

Altidor sideswiped one sergeant’s unmarked vehicle and rammed into the front of a detective’s as well before taking off, deputies said.

Deputies chased him as he drove down Eighth Street and onto I-95, where he “continued traveling at a high rate of speed, weaving recklessly through congested lanes and placing numerous motorists at significant risk,” according to the report.

He got off the highway and lost deputies before ditching his car to run into his apartment and order another Uber for himself, detectives said.

Deputies said they learned the victim was a 77-year-old woman who was contacted by a man she believed to be from Chase Bank about fraudulent activity on two of her bank accounts.

She was tranferred to a woman she believed to be from JM Associates, who told her to withdraw $14,000 from her bank account, she said. The victim said she only had $4,000 in it, but the fraudster on the phone assured her the FBI was involved and would enable her to withdraw $14,000, according to the report.

The victim then handed over an envelope of cash to a man and woman she believed to be FBI couriers, but were actually Uber delivery drivers, deputies said.

After that, she was instructed to give her credit card to another “courier” at a second location, who ended up being the Uber driver seen meeting with Altidor at Domino’s.

After the sheriff’s office put out information seeking Altidor’s arrest, he turned himself in at an MDSO station in Kendall.

He’s facing one misdemeanor and 10 felony charges, including organized scheme to defraud, fraudulent use of personal identification information, two counts of aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer or firefighter, two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer or firefighter, and aggravated fleeing and eluding resulting in property damage.

The fraud scheme follows a similar modus operandi as other recent bank fraud cases in Coral Springs.