Thief posing as Las Vegas casino lawyer steals $750K

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A casino worker handed over $750,000 in cash to a person she believed was the hotel’s lawyer in which police suspect is part of a larger theft operation, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.

Las Vegas Metro police arrested Rosa Barria, 36, last weekend on a theft charge, records said.

Early on the morning of June 8, 2023, a person called an employee working in the Sam’s Town cashier cage, claiming to be a lawyer for the casino, documents said. The caller said there would be a delivery from UPS and the delivery person would need to be paid. While on the phone with the scammer, the employee was also receiving messages on her phone.

The employee collected $750,000 and drove to a North Las Vegas business eight miles away, documents said. There, two people collected the money, including the person she believed to be the lawyer.

Once the employee returned to the casino, she informed a supervisor “that she believed she may have just fallen for a scam,” documents said.

As part of the investigation into the June 8 theft, police noted a similar scam that occurred months later and involved the delivery of money to a business. In that case, Barria allegedly asked another woman and a man to pick up a similar package.

It was unclear whether police suspect Barria was the caller, although police allege she deceived the employee. Police did not name any other suspects in court documents.

A representative from Sam’s Town did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This most recent case is similar to a scheme involving different casinos, leading to at least one conviction.

Last year, Clark County District Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells sentenced Erik Gutierrez Martinez, 25, to one year in the Clark County Detention Center after tricking a different casino employee into handing over $1 million. Lilly-Spells sentenced Gutierrez Martinez to a 36-to-96-month suspended sentence, meaning if he violates his probation upon his jail release, he will go to prison. Gutierrez Martinez remained in jail as of Wednesday.

As the 8 News Now Investigators first reported in June 2023, Metro police searched Gutierrez Martinez’s home, finding bundles of money from Circa Hotel & Casino, which they believe were part of a scam to defraud the business of more than $1 million, documents said.

Documents the 8 News Now Investigators later obtained in the case revealed the allegations involved thefts at Circa, Eureka Casino Resort in Mesquite and the Golden Nugget in Laughlin — as well as federal investigators, including the US Secret Service. Gutierrez Martinez was never charged with the allegations involving the Laughlin casino.

In March 2023, a casino cage supervisor at the Eureka casino removed $250,000 from the property and drove to Las Vegas to deliver the money to a person she believed was owed money for hand sanitizer. The person investigators believe the employee she met with at a gas station parking lot was Gutierrez Martinez, documents said.

On June 17, police responded to Circa for a report of a similar scam, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported in June. A person from the hotel’s security office told detectives “an unknown person” had contacted the casino cage “claiming to be the owner of the hotel” and asking for $320,000 for an emergency payment to the fire department, police wrote in court documents.

Police interviewed the cage supervisor, who said she received a phone call from a person who claimed they were the hotel’s owner. The person, who was not the hotel’s owner, said “the fire department needed to do a check on the fire extinguishers” and “they would need a payment for further safety devices,” documents said.

The cage supervisor brought the money in four installments to the unknown person at different off-site locations, documents said. The payments totaled $314,000, $350,000, and $500,000, plus three smaller deposits, resulting in a loss of $1,170,000 to the hotel, documents said. The employee believed she was on the phone with the hotel’s owner and texting with her manager, police said.

Barria remained in the Clark County Detention Center as of Wednesday on $30,000 bail. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Aug. 20.

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