{"id":427811,"date":"2026-10-14T18:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T18:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/427811\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T18:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T18:12:09","slug":"how-a-6500-zelle-scam-targeting-a-florida-couple-led-investigators-to-a-georgia-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/427811\/","title":{"rendered":"How a $6,500 Zelle scam targeting a Florida couple led investigators to a Georgia woman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/atlanta\/tag\/georgia\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Georgia<\/a> woman has been arrested after authorities said she was involved in a scam in which a couple in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/florida-keys\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Florida Keys<\/a> was tricked into paying $6,500 to people posing as law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n<p>Johnay Monique Barnett, 37, of Roswell, Georgia, was charged with grand theft and booked into the Monroe County jail on Tuesday, according to the Monroe County Sheriff&#8217;s Office.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation began in December 2025, when a couple in Key Haven, near Key West, reported receiving calls from people claiming to work for the Seminole County jail. Seminole County is located in the Orlando area.<\/p>\n<p>According to authorities, the callers told the couple that their son had been arrested and that they needed to pay $6,500 for an ankle monitor he would be required to wear upon his release.<\/p>\n<p>Believing the claims, the couple <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/news\/coral-gables-woman-zelle-scam\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">transferred the money through Zelle<\/a>, an online payment platform, deputies said.<\/p>\n<p>The scammers later contacted the couple again, demanding an additional $9,000. This time, the couple refused to pay, cut off communication and reported the incident to the sheriff&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>Investigation leads Florida authorities to Georgia<\/p>\n<p>Investigators worked with several Georgia law enforcement agencies, including the Forsyth County Sheriff&#8217;s Office, Atlanta Police Department and Alpharetta Police Department, to identify a suspect.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities also obtained assistance from multiple banks and reviewed security camera footage, financial records and body camera footage from previous investigations involving similar scams.<\/p>\n<p>The evidence ultimately led investigators to obtain an arrest warrant for Barnett.<\/p>\n<p>She was arrested and transferred to Monroe County, where she was booked into jail on Tuesday, Oct. 13.<\/p>\n<p>The Monroe County Sheriff&#8217;s Office did not specify whether any of the stolen money had been recovered or whether additional suspects were being sought.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Georgia woman has been arrested after authorities said she was involved in a scam in which a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7849,28,30,2472,29,1853,168132,5696,56934,20165,63496],"class_list":["post-427811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-atlanta","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-keys","tag-florida-news","tag-georgia","tag-marietta","tag-monroe-county","tag-monroe-county-sheriff039s-office","tag-scam-alert","tag-zelle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427811","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=427811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}