{"id":126579,"date":"2026-01-21T16:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126579\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:52:07","slug":"man-accused-of-fraud-money-mulling-45k-in-fort-myers-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126579\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of fraud, money mulling $45k in Fort Myers | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla.\u2014The Fort Myers Police Department has arrested a man accused of being connected to a multi-jurisdictional fraud ring that mulled approximately $45,000 through local retail establishments.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the police department posted on its Facebook account about an investigation launched on October 31, 2025, in which they began assisting an out-of-state agency after a fraud victim was deceived into mailing cash to a CVS Pharmacy in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n

According to the police department, CVS employees flagged the shipment as suspicious and handed the parcel to the police. Upon opening the shipment, police discovered $10,970 in U.S. currency.<\/p>\n

Detectives launched an investigation, during which they identified Harsh Rajeshbhai Varsani, 25, who, according to police, was using either aliases or fraudulent identification and transported $45,270 in U.S. currency as a money mule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation<\/a>, a money mule is someone who transfers or moves illegally acquired funds on behalf of another person.<\/p>\n

The police department then said others directed Varsani through internet-based communications to pick up, transport, and forward the cash.<\/p>\n

\"Harsh<\/p>\n

Credit: Fort Myers Police Department<\/p>\n

Varsani was located and arrested by law enforcement. He faces charges related to the fraud operation.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Karsen is a Digital Specialist and has been with WINK News\u00a0since May 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla.\u2014The Fort Myers Police Department has arrested a man accused of being connected to a multi-jurisdictional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325],"class_list":{"0":"post-126579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-lee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}