ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 An Orlando man was arrested during a trip to Hawaii as part of a fraud bust this week, according to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.<\/p>\n
In a release, Uthmeier\u2019s office announced that the man \u2014 identified as Steven Harry Minard, 57 \u2014 was accused of putting together a complex scheme to defraud a high-profile investor out of $1 million.<\/p>\n
To do so, he promoted a non-existent, multi-billion-dollar development project known as \u201cOrlando World Live\u201d (OWL), the release states.<\/p>\n
Officials wrote that OWL was presented as a massive entertainment and urban development project in downtown Orlando, featuring futuristic \u201czones,\u201d high-profile celebrity partnerships, and projected revenues of over $1.6 billion.<\/p>\n
However, it was later revealed that no such project actually existed, investigators noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo permit applications or contracts were ever filed with the city of Orlando, and the funds provided by the victim were allegedly diverted to pay off Minard\u2019s unrelated business debts and personal expenses,\u201d the release reads.<\/p>\n
As a result, Minard was located and arrested in Honolulu, Hawaii, while trying to board a flight back to Houston, Texas, Uthmeier\u2019s office declared. He\u2019s now in custody, pending extradition to Florida.<\/p>\n
Per state officials, Minard faces several felony charges, including a count of scheming to defraud and a count of sale of an unregistered security.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case exemplifies the reach of our Statewide Prosecutors, who partner with state, local, and federal law enforcement to bring criminals back to Florida to face justice,\u201d Uthmeier said. \u201cThanks to the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, our federal partners at HSI New York EDTF, HSI Orlando, HSI Honolulu, and the Honolulu Police Department for their collaboration on this investigation and arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n
Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 An Orlando man was arrested during a trip to Hawaii as part of a fraud…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[265,28,30,29,1335,139,5854,2546],"class_list":["post-264321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-scams","tag-strange-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264321","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=264321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}