Gabriel Morillo, 23, of the Bronx faces eight felony charges after Greenwich police allege he used fake IDs and the messaging app Telegram to traffic stolen personal information to co-conspirators.
Morillo was arrested Oct. 15 at Stamford Superior Court, where he had appeared on charges stemming from the same case, Greenwich Free Press reported. A judge set his bond at $250,000. He was unable to post it.
The investigation began April 30, when plainclothes officers from the Greenwich Police Department's Organized Retail Crime Abatement (ORCA) unit responded to a financial crime at a store on Greenwich Avenue. Officers detained Morillo and a second individual.
Police allege Morillo and a co-conspirator were attempting to add cell phone lines to compromised Verizon and AT&T accounts using fake identification cards. A vehicle search turned up forged documents, new and older-model iPhones, Apple receipts from across the tri-state area and large amounts of cash.
ORCA officers then seized Morillo's cell phone and obtained a search warrant for its data. Police allege the phone showed Morillo had sent stolen personal information belonging to multiple identity-theft victims to co-conspirators through Telegram.
He was charged with four counts of illegal trafficking in personal identification information and four counts of conspiracy to commit the same offense. Under Connecticut law, each trafficking count is a Class D felony.
The ORCA unit is a plainclothes detail that has operated within the Greenwich Police Department since 2020, focusing on larceny, fraud, identity theft and other crimes in the town's Central Business District. As we reported Oct. 22, the unit arrested a Flushing, N.Y., man in a separate iPhone fraud case days before Morillo's arrest.
The store where the April 30 incident occurred has not been identified, and the co-conspirator's identity and legal status have not been disclosed.
Anyone with information about identity theft or fraud in Greenwich can contact the Greenwich Police Department at 203-622-8004.
