- When arresting a man on cyberstalking charges, the
FBI discovered he was operating a student loanscam . - Jalon Carlos Torres was arrested after sending racist messages to a banker.
- Investigators found that bank accounts belonging to Torres' company were closed due to suspicious activity.
A years-long student loan scam operation was exposed when a man was arrested after harassing a banker with disturbing and racist messages, The Daily Beast reported Monday.
Federal authorities arrived at the home of Jalon Carlos Torres, 43, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to arrest him on charges of cyberstalking after he bombarded a North Carolina banker with racist messages. But while there, authorities discovered an elaborate years-long student loan scam operating out of Torres' home.
Last July, the banker, who was not named in the report, called Torres to inform him that the bank was closing his account - which he opened a month before in the name of his company, the Student Resolution Center LLC (SRC) - for unauthorized activity.
According to an FBI arrest warrant, Torres responded to the banker: "How do you feel closing someone's account given the current situation regarding COVID-19, protests and Black Lives Matter, you must feel good about yourself, how can you sleep at night?" He also demanded the employee's name, which she refused to give and then hung up.
For the next eight months, Torres allegedly inundated the banker, her husband, and their family with more than 200 racist messages and death threats with "spoofed" phone numbers to conceal his identity, according to court documents.
In July of last year, Torres sent a message to the banker's husband, which said, "PICKUP [sic] THE PHONE [N-WORD] I GOT SOMETHING YOUR [sic] GONNA WANNA HEAR!" followed by a text including their home address, court documents said.
Torres also sent pictures of the couple, calling them an "UGLY F---ING COUPLE," as well as pictures of her husband's relatives, saying "ILL [sic] F--- THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE" regarding a photo of three of his female relatives. Another message read "F--- YO FAM [N-WORD]" with more photos of their family.
In October 2020, Torres also allegedly sent images of Nazi and Ku Klux Klan flags with the message, "WE COMING FOR U AND UR [N-WORD] WIFE."
Then, in February 2021, Torres sent a text message to the banker's sister, saying that "SOMEBODY BETTER TELL [the banker] TO QUIT WHILE SHE IS A HEAD [sic]. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE F---ING WITH. F--- THR [sic] F---ING S--- OR ALL OF YOU WILL SUFFER!! YOU'VE ALL BEEN WARNED [N-WORD]!!" followed by a picture of the banker and her husband.
Out of all of the text messages and phone calls that Torres had allegedly left the banker and her family, at least one of the calls were traced back to a number that he had used to call the bank, during which he identified himself by name, which allowed the FBI to trace him.
On March 11, the FBI arrived at Torres' home to arrest him on charges of cyberstalking and interstate threats, but instead found the equipment he used to run the student loan scheme, according to court documents.
"As part of the business, Torres would cold-call individuals to get them to enlist the 'services' of SRC, which he represented would reduce or eliminate their student loan debt in a few small payments to SRC," an FBI forfeiture warrant read. "Many clients would then sign a contract with SRC. The contract would contain personal information including names, addresses, bank account information, and telephone numbers."
According to the documents, "after obtaining bank account information from individuals, Torres would print checks with the individuals' account information and deposit the fraudulent checks into various bank accounts controlled by him."
Further investigation into the operation revealed that multiple bank accounts belonging to Torres' company were closed due to suspicious activity, The Beast reported.
Torres was arrested in Denver on March 12 and indicted on March 16 in federal court in North Carolina.