Two years ago, Gelsey Rhormens and her then-husband became friends with a man at the gym they used to go to.
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Months later, as the friendship progressed, the friends became business partners.
“He presented himself as a very friendly person,” said Rhormens in Portuguese. “Soon, when he talked about his work, we felt comfortable with investing with him.”
The man who presented himself as a business partner was 43-year-old Joao Carlos do Rego, a Brazilian native who’s said to have been in the United States for about six years.
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“He said he worked with properties that were not sold during state auctions,” said Rhormens, who spoke exclusively with Channel 9. “His work was basically search for those properties, buy them, and he would even say he had people already interested in (buying) the places.”
Rhormens said she invested $30,000 with Do Rego in hopes of buying two properties out of state, but she never saw the homes. The alleged scammer used a company called Excellence Private LLC, now inactive according to the Florida Division of Corporations. Last month, Do Rego was arrested for an unrelated bank robbery in Hunters Creek.