$803,000 Drained From Elderly Victim’s Account in Check Fraud Scheme – Mastermind Faces up to 30 Years Behind Bars: DOJ

A fraudster who drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from an elderly victim’s account is now staring at the possibility of spending decades behind bars.

Cuban national Michel Duarte Suarez has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft after stealing about $803,000 from his victim’s bank account over a four-month period.

Court documents show that Suarez told a confidential informant in March 2022 that he had access to the account of an 82-year-old victim.

While living in Panama at the time, the scammer wrote and sent checks to South Florida with instructions to his co-conspirators to encash the checks and wire 50% of the funds to Suarez’s Miami-based firm, Online Electronics. Authorities say that Suarez forged the checks to resemble the signature of the victim displayed on their signature card for the same bank account.

Suarez was arrested in January 2025 in Panama and was extradited to South Florida to face the charges. For his crimes, he could spend 30 years behind bars plus a mandatory consecutive two-year sentence to any imprisonment term handed down by a judge.

The fraudster is slated for sentencing on September 29th, 2025, in Miami before United States District Court Judge Kathleen M. Williams.

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