In April 2017, the Seattle police arrested a Brazilian guy they’d stuck putting in a card-skimming system on an A.T.M. close to the famed Pike Place Market. As officials investigated, they hooked up the person to a Florida deal with the place he as soon as lived with George Santos, now a Republican congressman from New York.
The guy, Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha, pleaded responsible to a federal fraud fee in the case and was once in the long run deported to Brazil. Mr. Santos was once now not implicated or charged, however he later informed a legal professional that he were wondered by the Seattle police, and he flew around the nation to testify at a bail listening to on Mr. Trelha’s behalf.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trelha sought to enormously trade the narrative of the case. In a testimony that he submitted to the federal government, he accused Mr. Santos of main the operation and mentioned the 2 had agreed to separate the earnings in part. Mr. Trelha contended that he had now not disclosed this in the past as a result of Mr. Santos had threatened his pals.
“I am coming forward today to declare that the person in charge of the crime of credit card fraud when I was arrested was George Santos/Anthony Devolder,” Mr. Trelha wrote in his commentary, which was once first reported by Politico and despatched to the F.B.I., the Secret Service and the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Brooklyn.
Mr. Santos, who from time to time has used his center identify, Anthony, and his mom’s final identify, Devolder, characterised the accusation as simply the “newest insanity,” writing on Twitter on Thursday that the claims had been “categorically false.”
He added that he would “entertain sitting down” and discussing Mr. Trelha’s accusations with “any news organization willing to do good journalism.” A spokeswoman in Mr. Santos’s House workplace didn’t reply to a request for an interview.
Mr. Santos has said his previous ties to Mr. Trelha. According to a recording published by Politico, he flew to Seattle to testify on Mr. Trelha’s behalf at a bail listening to, pronouncing the 2 had been “family friends.”
It was once unclear whether or not federal officers would read about Mr. Trelha’s allegations. A spokesman for the Secret Service mentioned the company had won the declaration however declined additional remark. A spokesman for the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Brooklyn declined to remark.
Mr. Santos, a Republican who represents portions of Long Island and Queens, is already dealing with inquiries from federal and native prosecutors in the wake of reporting by The New York Times that exposed that he had falsified portions of his background and paintings revel in throughout his marketing campaign, and that discovered vital irregularities in his marketing campaign’s fund-raising and spending practices.
Prosecutors in Brazil have additionally revived a prison case in opposition to him in which he admitted to test fraud in 2008. He additionally confronted robbery fees in Pennsylvania in 2017 over unhealthy exams he wrote to canine breeders, despite the fact that the case was once later disregarded and expunged, in keeping with a legal professional who assisted Mr. Santos on the time.
The fees had been dropped after Mr. Santos’s legal professional informed legislation enforcement government that his checkbook were stolen and that he believed the Pennsylvania episode was once tied to a credit-fraud case in Seattle.
The precise nature of Mr. Santos’s involvement in the Seattle case is unclear. Although he informed the legal professional, Tiffany Bogosian, that he had acted as an informant for the police, Mr. Santos’s identify does now not seem in police or courtroom information.
Seattle police information acquired by The Times display that officials had been referred to as to an A.T.M. after a Chase Bank investigator reported seeing photos of a person arriving there for 3 consecutive days at 6:30 a.m. to put in an unlawful card-reading software that he would then retrieve later in the night time.
When the police arrived, they discovered and arrested Mr. Trelha, who had “numerous fraudulent credit cards,” a police file mentioned. When officials searched his automobile, they discovered empty FedEx packaging with a go back deal with in Winter Park, Fla., an Orlando suburb.
Mr. Santos lived and labored in Orlando in brief. In October 2016, he was once issued a price tag in the world for failing to forestall at a purple mild; the summons indexed Mr. Santos’s deal with because the Winter Park condominium that was once later indexed on Mr. Trelha’s package deal.
Mr. Santos’s identify was once now not at the FedEx package deal, and federal courtroom paperwork and police information don’t point out him as being concerned in the skimming operation. In courtroom filings, Mr. Trelha mentioned he informed the police he was once phase of a bigger operation being run out of Brazil.
But in the declaration he filed this week, Mr. Trelha mentioned Mr. Santos taught him “how to skim card information and how to clone cards.” He additionally mentioned that Mr. Santos had a warehouse in Orlando with the machines and fabrics essential to behavior the scheme, and that the 2 had agreed to separate earnings similarly.
“It didn’t work out so well,” Mr. Trelha mentioned in the declaration, “because I was arrested.”
In the declaration, Mr. Trelha mentioned Mr. Santos later visited him in prison and instructed Mr. Trelha to not point out him, then later “threatened” Mr. Trelha’s pals in an effort to stay Mr. Trelha quiet. He additionally mentioned Mr. Santos had stolen cash that Mr. Trelha had accumulated to pay his $75,000 bail.
Mr. Trelha informed Politico in an interview that he anxious Mr. Santos would have his pals in Orlando deported. He mentioned in his affidavit that he sought after to return ahead after seeing Mr. Santos on tv in fresh months.
In the recording of Mr. Trelha’s bail hearing, Mr. Santos additionally informed the pass judgement on he labored at Goldman Sachs, regardless that, as The Times has reported, he didn’t.
The legal professional who filed the commentary on Mr. Trelha’s behalf, Mark Demetropolous, didn’t reply to messages in quest of remark. A decision to his workplace quantity went to a legislation company run by Grant Lally, a one-time Republican congressional candidate who runs a Long Island newspaper that solid some doubt on some of Mr. Santos’s claims throughout his 2022 marketing campaign.
It was once now not transparent how Mr. Demetropolous, who describes himself on RelatedIn as a company and tax legal professional, turned into concerned with Mr. Trelha’s case.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien contributed reporting.