Alleged Scammer Arrested for Impersonating Volusia County Officials

The Volusia Sheriff’s Office announced on Wednesday that 26-year-old Keith Merard has been arrested for allegedly impersonating Volusia County government officials in order to operate a scam. Merard lives in Miramar, and he was arrested on Monday. Per the VSO’s report, Merard was part of a network of scammers who contacted vendors in order to open lines of credit and to fraudulently conduct business transactions. In one instance, the VSO says, a $7,000 order of reusable respirators was shipped to Miami by a vendor who scammed the vendor out of their money. The tipping point came in October, when the VSO says a company selling Starlink kits suspected something was off about an order from a purchasing director with the Volusia County government. That company contacted the county, learning that no such order had been placed legitimately. They then reportedly realized that this instance resembled another time when $48,000 worth of kits were sent to Broward County with an invoice that still hadn’t been paid. The Volusia Sheriff’s Office began investigating the scam, and received a key clue when someone reportedly tried activating one of their Starlink kits on October 31st. This gave an exact location of where they were operating it from: an apartment in Miramar. This would turn out to be Keith Merard’s apartment. Later on, the VSO came into possession of surveillance video appearing to show Merard loading several Starlink boxes out of storage and into a Ford SUV, giving investigators imagery of him handling the stolen materials. A search warrant was executed on Monday, leading to his arrest. Merard was booked into the Broward County Jail having been charged with organized scheme to defraud and criminal use of person identification information. He’s alleged to have sent the fraudulently-obtained goods to another party, using Bitcoin to wire money covertly.