Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Woman Drugged Men in Deadly Dating App Scam: Feds

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Aurora Phelps faces a long list of federal charges after the FBI said she targeted men and women on dating apps, drugged them and stole from them. A federal indictment claims three men Phelps met for dates died after she drugged them. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the terrifying case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lccrimefix and access information about almost anyone!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Gene Rossi  https://x.com/rossi4vaCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. This is technically a romance scam, but this is a romance scam on steroids. We have not seen one like this in recent history. A woman is accused of using a dating app to lure men for dates, drugging them, and then robbing them blind. And the Fed said that some of those victims actually died. I have the case of Aurora Phelps and why the FBI believes there

are more victims. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Aurora Phelps is in jail in Mexico and she's facing serious federal charges, including kidnapping resulting in death. Yes, you heard me right. The U.S. attorney in Nevada says Phelps kidnapped a man and he died. The FBI says Phelps met her victims using dating apps like Tinder and Plenty of Fish, and she targeted older men, and sometimes she even used different names. On one of her Tinder profiles, she went by Sissy and wrote, I am looking for friends, no fake people. The acting U.S. attorney outlined the case. As alleged in the superseding indictment, from July 1st, 2021 to December 9th, 2022, Ms. Phelps met older men on dating websites or

services, then met them in person. It was part of her scheme to drug the older men to gain unauthorized access to and steal money from their financial accounts to personally benefit herself and members of her family. And in some instances, the feds say that Aurora Phelps tried to take a whole lot of money. More on that in a bit. But it turns out the feds say it wasn't just men that Phelps targeted. As outlined in the federal indictment, we believe Aurora Phelps deliberately and methodically targeted older men to drug them and steal from them. The charges being unsealed today relate to crimes Phelps is alleged to have committed against four male victims. However, the FBI has become aware of multiple additional potential victims, male and female, both in the United States and Mexico, that we believe Phelps preyed upon over a period of more than three years.

The FBI laid out a timeline. It claims Phelps' first victim was a woman in Bentonville, Arkansas, in June of 2019. The second victim was in Las Vegas in February of 2021. Victim number three was from North Las Vegas in April of 2021. Victim number three was from North Las Vegas in April of 2021. Victim number four was identified as GC and was from Henderson, Nevada in November of 2021. Victim number five the following month was in Mexico. Victims six, seven, eight, nine, and ten were all targeted in Mexico from April to August of 2022. And the final victim known to law enforcement, JW, was from Las Vegas in November of 2022. Now you might be asking yourself, how is Aurora Phelps accused of victimizing people in two countries? Well, the FBI says Phelps is a dual citizen of

both Mexico and the United States. She's lived in Arkansas, Mexico, and central Nevada. And there is a shocking claim about Phelps that the FBI special agent in charge in Las Vegas makes about what she did. The victims, I want to be clear, they were unwitting. They contacted, you know, Aurora Phelps on an online dating site. Some of them were lonely looking for companionship. Most of them were, you know, elderly single men. She befriended them. In many cases she went on multiple dates with them, brought them into her confidence, and then surreptitiously administered heavy doses of sedatives, kept them drugged, and then was able to access their financial information, their bank accounts. In the

case of one victim, literally push him across the border in a wheelchair in an was able to access their bank accounts in the case push him across the borde in an inebriated state, t room again against his wi were not conscious, able decisions at that point. is accused of drugging a across the border in a whe

And the victims were elde according to the feds. We believe Phelps connected with each of them through an online dating application so she could lure them into her confidence under false pretenses and then drug them with dangerous doses of prescription sedatives or other controlled substances. Once she incapacitated her victims, Phelps stole bank and brokerage account use their credit cards to purchases, including luxur

gold and even attempted t and retirement accounts. that Phelps is accused of no small amount. In one instance, she is alleged to have liquidated millions of dollars of stock from one of her victims and attempted to transfer the proceeds to a bank account that she controlled. All of the victims listed in this indictment are U.S. citizens. Two were residents of the state of Nevada when they encountered Phelps and were drugged by her. We believe Phelps kidnapped one of these victims by heavily sedating him and pushing him across the U.S.-Mexico border in a wheelchair due to his

inebriated state. Phelps then took him to a hotel room in Mexico City where the victim was found dead a few hours later. The superseding indictment shows some of the transfers and purchases that Phelps is accused of making. In November of 2021, the superseding indictment says that Phelps placed a DoorDash order from one state to another, causing a wire transfer to occur with VictimOne. And she's accused of initiating a $64,000 wire transfer from VictimOne's bank account to her husband's bank account. If you're going to meet up with somebody that you met on a dating app, it's probably a good idea to check them out before you do. I decided to search Aurora Phelps on truthfinder.com to see what I could find. An

address for Phelps showed up in Las Vegas, of course. And under criminal and traffic records, you're never going to believe what I found. A case from 2018 shows up for fraudulent use of a credit card out of Arkansas, along with a warrant for her arrest that was issued in November of 2022. Truthfinder is great because it will show you a person's phone numbers, past addresses, and criminal and traffic records. If you'd like to try Truthfinder out, I have a really great deal for you. You can get 50% off of confidential background reports. Log on to www.truthfinder.com slash lccrimefix. Log on and start accessing information about almost anyone. Then there's Victim 2. In November of 2022, the indictment claims Phelps transferred $7,000 from Mexico to Nevada from Victim 2's Capital One account to Carter Power Sports to buy a motorcycle.

Then a few days later, Phelps is accused of wiring $1,530 from a Wells Fargo account opened in Victim 2's name to one of her accounts. And the following month, in December, Phelps is accused of transferring more than $2,300 from a Wells Fargo account that belonged to the victim to Phelps' bank account. Now you get the picture. There were also purchases for luxury items that were mentioned. Those are listed in the superseding indictment. In 2022, there are two transactions at Dior involving victim two,

and one at APMEX, a gold and coin dealer. Aurora Phelps faces a number of charges, seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of mail fraud, six counts of bank fraud, three counts of identity theft, one count of kidnapping, one count of kidnapping resulting in death, and that could put her in prison for life. Phelps is accused of using aliases. They are Aurora Alvarez Aurora Flores Aurora Velasco Bori Bora Borea sissy Laura and even Susan and she used several dating apps according to the feds tinder match our time plenty of fish bumble ok cupid and hinge and the really sad part the feds believe there are probably more victims out there that haven't contacted them yet.

Yes, this is technically a romance scam, but this is a romance scam on steroids. We have not seen one like this in recent history that's, you know, as nefarious, as, you know, as sinister and certainly has the, you know, as much of a tragic result as some of the others that we see. It's folks that are out looking for love that ran into something far more sinister and that never intended to get involved with somebody in this way. I wanna bring in Gene Rossi. He's a former federal prosecutor. So Gene, I have to get your thoughts.

When you read this indictment and heard about this case, what did you think? Well, we had a case like this in Eastern District of Virginia. It's called kidnapping resulting in death. And count 21 involves victim one. So evidently, allegedly, victim two was brought across the United States-Mexico line from Vegas, and the victim two allegedly has perished. So that's the major count. What's interesting, it's count 21. I would have seen this, if it were my case, count one, because that's the biggest count. That's death penalty eligible. But regarding the other allegations in the indictment,

you have three key victims. There's a fourth victim, but the three key victims appear to have met the defendant, Aurora Phelps, either online or various other ways, and they're older men with money. And what she has done is she has drugged them, allegedly, and gotten them to turn over involuntarily credit cards, account information, and things like that. And she's committed a scam using medication and drugging. And what I would like to know, and Jeanette, we talked about this before we started, I would like to know if the daughter of the defendant, Aurora Phelps, and the defendant, if they're implicated in some way, because they are mentioned in the indictment. Yeah, there was some questions about that,

I think, during the press conference, and they wouldn't really comment about whether other people would be charged or could be charged. And what's interesting about this is that this superseding indictment was actually filed under seal in November of 2023, so well over a year ago. And so this thing's been sitting there in the courthouse under seal for over a year. And so what does that tell you? I've tried to kind of get some information about when Aurora Phelps was actually, you know, nabbed by the feds, or I shouldn't say by the feds, because she's in jail in custody in Mexico. I've been trying to get information about when they actually took her into custody, and they really won't comment.

I have to think it was probably recently. But what does that tell you, the fact that they've had this indictment under seal? That, to me, tells me that she's been kind of on the lam, or at least she's been in Mexico, and they've been trying to track her down. Yeah, what that tells me is two things. One, you're right. She's on the lam or was on the lam and they were having difficulty finding her. I'm sure she heard through the grapevine that she was a target of a grand jury investigation in Las Vegas. I'm sure she found out about that somehow. That's point number one. Point number two is this. Because victims three and four allegedly may have perished in Mexico, and the criminal acts

for those two victims may have occurred only in Mexico, the Mexican authorities had an incentive to help the United States prosecutors in charging victims one and two because they have a commonality of purpose. So I don't know when she was arrested. I would assume it was probably this year because she's, as you say, she's been on the lam. Why they are so secretive about when she was arrested and cooperation, that could affect witnesses that they're trying to persuade to cooperate either voluntarily or involuntarily through court process. So that's why they're keeping their cards close to the vest as to when she was arrested

and who may be cooperating, because they don't want anybody harmed or threatened if they have to go to trial. And maybe that was part of this, getting these other people on board to cooperate, possibly persuading them. We just we don't know. And they wouldn't talk about that. I mean, they're not going to stand up at a press conference and say that. I do want to talk about that cooperation between Mexico and the United States because two of these victims died in Mexico. I mean, she's crisscrossing the border, according to the FBI. She has dual citizenship. She is taking, according to the special agent in charge there in Las Vegas, Spencer Evans, she drugged somebody, allegedly. This is what she's accused of doing, drugging a guy and pushing

him across the border in a wheelchair. I mean, that's what she's accused of doing. This is really a diabolical kind of allegation. then and then stealing from these people i mean it's black widow kind of stuff and i don't sure she may not have intended you know to kill these people but three of these victims two three and four died and one of them was taken into mexico two of them died in mexico so they're the United States, they are working together on this. And the feds want her extradited to the U.S. to face these charges. Well, that's the beauty of kidnapping resulting in death. You don't have to intend that there be a death. It's just you committed a kidnapping and then your actions caused the death.

I'll give you a good example. If I give you oxy pills and you overdose and die, when I sold you the oxy pills, I didn't intend that you die from the pills. I just wanted to make some money selling the pills. But there is a charge under the drug statute, you know, death resulting from the distribution of pills. I don't have to have the intent that you perish from my pills, but my pills caused you to die. Kidnapping resulting in death is the same thing. She did not intend to cause the death of these victims, allegedly, but all you have to show is her actions resulted in the death.

And that's allegedly provable because she drugged them, she brought them across Mexico lines, and all the signs point towards her actions causing the death, even though she didn't intend such. This all started, the feds say, back on July 1st of 2021. This is when she met victim one, and they went on some lunch dates together. It sounds like this didn't happen immediately, whatever went on with this victim. So they had some lunch dates, they hung out a little bit, and then she persuades him, according to the feds to travel to Mexico. And I mean, look at her photo. She's pretty. She's a pretty woman. And I'm sure an older gentleman probably saw her on a dating app and thought, wow, I mean, there's this pretty lady who's interested in me.

And if you're lonely and looking for companionship and love, hey, yeah, you'll go to Mexico with her. And then apparently in November, it says the defendant met victim one at his house, caused lunch to be delivered, and then caused him to consume a prescription drug without his knowledge, leaving him unconscious for the next five days. I mean, that's insane. And then she stole, according to the indictment, his iPhone, iPads, driver's license, bank cards, gained access to his financial accounts and conducted financial transactions using his accounts, I mean, and she tried to transfer, Gene, $3.3 million in Apple stock. She was unsuccessful, but she got into his E-Trade account.

$3.3 million of his Apple stock she tried to steal. Well, just looking at the indictment, I don't have all the facts. I cannot believe that she acted alone. So you were talking about the press conference and information from law enforcement. I can't help but believe that there are other conspirators involved in this scam. And you mentioned the five days where the victim was incoherent. During that five days, she probably had him involuntarily ingest more pills to continue that somnolent state that she exploited. The other thing is, one of the counts in this indictment is aggravated identity theft, where I use your personal identification information,

social security name, date of birth, and I try to conduct a financial transaction that violates the wire and mail fraud statutes. So aggravated identity theft, you know, in the grand scheme of things is a two-year maximum and minimum. But that's a powerful charge that they threw in. I want to move on to victim two, also an elderly man who met her on a dating app. And they met at a restaurant in Las Vegas. She caused him to consume medication as well. This is all according to the indictment.

And she got into his bank accounts, allegedly, and she used his Amex to make several purchases, it says. And he was under the influence of a drug and she caused him to travel to Mexico with her. A defendant caused him to travel with her and her daughter to Mexico City. So her daughter was along for the ride on that, Gene. So you had asked earlier about possible co-conspirators. We don't know, and it's important to note, we don't know the age of the daughter. We don't know if the daughter was underage. We don't know if the daughter is a witness in this case.

There are a lot of questions still that need to be answered. Well, here's the thing. I suspect that the daughter is of age to be charged, because if they wanted to protect the child, they would have called the daughter a child, that they put daughter. One, it's a woman. And two, that suggests that it's a person of adult age. If she's in her 40s, it's possible that this daughter's in her 20s and that she may be cooperating or in the crosshairs of the feds. Now, the husband, I'd like to know more information about the husband. I can't believe, based on what I read, that the husband was in the dark on this. And victim two, I want to point out, died in the hotel room.

That's what the feds say. Died in a hotel room in Mexico City. So that is some scary stuff. And it says they were making all kinds of purchases, you know, airline tickets, hotel rooms, they bought a motorcycle, you know, you're talking about the husband, you know, the motorcycle, we don't know if, you know, it sounds like maybe that's a purchase for the husband. We don't know. It could be, it could not be. So there's a lot going on here with this.

It kind of makes you very, you know, makes you want to sit down with your parents or anybody else really to talk about how careful you have to be when using things like these dating apps. Well, Anjanette, here's the thing. People are now starting to get away from using cell phones 24-7. People are starting to get away from engaging in social media, going on these platforms. You see individuals who become almost in a bubble, and their whole interaction with the world is through electronic mediums. And this is a good example how crimes are now committed through the use of social media, onlines. I can't tell you my clients, but I have other clients who have gotten in trouble because of social media. What I'd like

to know is this, have any other victims come out of the woodwork other than victims one through four? I suspect the answer is yes. I can't imagine that this defendant has limited her criminal activity to just four people. I suspect that the federal authorities in the United States and in Mexico, they are probably getting in the United States. They think there are more. And so once they get potentially her electronic devices, I'm assuming they've executed warrants on family members' electronic devices. I don't know. You may find even more. We just don't know how deep this goes potentially. Right. I will say this. If there are more victims and the federal government has venue, you're going to see possibly additional superseding indictments.

At the end of the day, this appears to be a very strong case. And where the rubber meets the road is, will she plead guilty to avoid the death penalty? Because it is death penalty eligible. Well, they're saying right now that she's facing life in prison. They haven't said anything about pursuing the death penalty, but you're saying, I mean, is that a decision they would make later on?

And how many times can you do a superseding indictment? Oh, you could supersede as many times as you want. Absolutely. I mean, it's just at some point, the judge is going to say, we're going to trial. If you supersede again, we're still going to trial on the old indictment. The judge can do that. So, Gene, how long do you think it takes? She could fight

extradition. How long do you think it takes for her to be brought back, Aurora Phelps, to the United States? I think it could take two to four months to exhaust the extradition process. And because the Mexican authorities are on our side and want us to prosecute this case, I think the extradition process could move a lot faster. Well, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Gene Rossi, former federal prosecutor, all-around good guy, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you.