George Santos Orchestrated ATM Fraud, His Former Roommate Tells Feds

A former roommate of Rep. George Santos (R-Nassau/Queens) has claimed in a declaration to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) that Santos ran an ATM fraud scheme, which the roommate was convicted for, according to a March 9 Politico report.

Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha says he met Santos when he moved into a room in Santos’ Florida apartment in 2016. It was then that Santos showed him how to forge credit cards, Trelha says, and Trelha traveled to Seattle to carry out the scheme and was caught, arrested, and convicted in 2017.

“Santos taught me how to skim card information and how to clone cards. He gave me all the materials and taught me how to put skimming devices and cameras on ATM machines,” Trelha wrote in the declaration, which Mineola attorney Mark Demetropoulos submitted to federal investigators on March 7.

Trelha, a Brazilian man who pleaded guilty to the fraud charges and was deported, says that Santos flew him to Seattle to “steal credit card information from ATM terminals” and that they had a 50-50 deal.

Trelha also stated that Santos visited him in jail and threatened to have Trelha’s friends in Florida deported if Trelha mentioned Santos to authorities. Trelha also claims that Santos stole the money that Trelha had collected for bail.

In the declaration, Trelha says he is coming forward after seeing Santos on television since his infamous rise to fame in Congress. Trelha claims he has witnesses who can verify his story, and offered his email address and phone number on the declaration for authorities to contact him.

Politico’s attempts to reach authorities or Santos’ lawyer for comments were unsuccessful.

In response to the news outlet’s report, Santos Tweeted:

“With everyone asking I’ll give a simple answer.

The newest insanity published by politico is categorically false. Any news organization willing to do good Journalism I’ll entertain sitting down with you and go over it all.

Be well and stay safe all.”

Politico previously reported about Trelha’s case in February and found that Santos lied about working for Goldman Sachs when testifying at Trelha’s bail hearing.