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Del Taco YouTube Scammers Arrested

by Tim Stevens on March 19, 2008 at 11:29 AM


YouTube is, just like the broader Internet, a very strange place. Let people post videos of just about anything they want for free and -- well -- people will post videos of just about anything they want. A disconcerting number of people have taken to posting videos of dubious activities, including child abuse and even blatantly illegal acts, like rape. Now three men have been arrested in Rialto, California for posting a video of a far less heinous crime: Scamming food out of a Del Taco fast-food franchise.

The video above was uploaded to the site last month. It shows one man who calls himself Mr. Califero pretending to be a CEO named Robert Kennedy. He claims that Del Taco gave his two sons an incorrect order earlier in the day. After a lengthy phone conversation, he convinces the restaurant manager to give him a free order then indicates his two "sons" (accomplices) will go in to pick it up. Later in the video they're all then shown eating the food which would have cost a whopping $15 if they had gone the legal route.

Just a few days after getting a tip about the video, local police detectives arrested 32-year-old Robert Echeverria, the real name of Mr. Califero, and his two accomplices, 18-year-olds Ian Anthony Roman and Brian Fawcett. They're being held on charges of second-degree commercial burglary. With some accusations of gang ties among the group, chances are the next time they show up on video, it'll be at a sentencing hearing.

From The Press-Enterprise

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Tags: felony, law, YouTube

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