INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A college athlete is accused of stealing thousands of dollars from a woman in a bank card scam in transactions across South Florida.
The FBI and Indian River County sheriff’s deputies apprehended two men in connection to the scam, which led to over $17,000 in losses for the woman, according to court records.
Of those apprehended at a home in the Vero Beach area Sept. 3, one person was arrested on grand theft and fraud charges.
Kareem Carswell Jr., 21, of Palm Bay, was arrested when FBI agents and deputies served a federal warrant at a residence in the 1200 block of Preston Estates Circle.
“This is still an active investigation with the FBI,” said Lt. Kevin Jaworski when asked about the arrest. He said Carswell was “identified and linked to that house.”
Details of the alleged scam are found in an Indian River County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.
Detectives in mid-July spoke with the woman, said in the report to be an “elderly, disabled person, who was restricted to a wheelchair.”
She said she was called from an unknown phone number on July 7. The caller, she told detectives, was “a young sounding male” who claimed to work for her bank, knew her banking details and said she was a victim of credit card fraud.
During a six-hour call, the caller asked her to place her “compromised cards” outside her home under a doormat.
Someone soon arrived at the residence and took the cards, and shortly after that, the woman said she was notified her card had been used at a Walmart.
Carswell was identified by deputies in the Sebastian Walmart’s surveillance footage as the suspect shown using the woman’s bank card to transfer $500 onto a gift card.
The detective wrote Carswell transferred over $1,500 onto gift cards from her bank and credit cards in two Walmart stops.
Others were said to be seen with Carswell entering and exiting a vehicle in its parking lot while he was seen having a video call with at least two people during a transaction.
According to the affidavit, in a traffic stop that night, Carswell told Sebastian police he was going to Walmart while body camera footage showed a white envelope in the vehicle’s back seat.
He also told a deputy he was a “running back for Quincy University,” the detective wrote.
Nearly $4,000 in money orders were made with her cards at a Melbourne post office, however the person suspected of purchasing the money orders was not identified in the affidavit.
In several transactions July 8 at Miccosukee Casino & Resort in Miami, deputies identified Carswell as one of two people seen in surveillance footage using the woman’s cards to make transactions totaling over $6,000.
Altogether, there were over $17,000 in withdrawals from her accounts with the cards over two days and 10 transactions across Brevard, Indian River, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
In his arrest affidavit, Carswell is said to have been identified in transactions totaling roughly $7,500.
Another person, a Sebastian man, was identified alongside Carswell in footage at the casino. He was taken into custody when the warrant was served Sept. 3, however he has not been charged in relation related to the scam.
According to an online roster and social media posts, Carswell, originally from Hollywood, was a running back at Quincy University, a private college in Illinois, in 2024. As a freshman running back at Tusculum University in Tennessee his stated major was criminal justice.
Carswell was released from the Indian River County Jail Sept. 4 on $100,000 bail following his first appearance in court where he was charged with grand theft of $5,000 or more but less than $10,000; and fraudulent use of credit cards.
Court records do not list an attorney for Carswell, and he could not be reached by phone.
Corey Arwood is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow @coreyarwood on X, email corey.arwood@tcpalm.com or call 772-978-2246.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: FBI, detectives investigate bank card scam; college football player arrested in Vero Beach
Reporting by Corey Arwood, Treasure Coast Newspapers / Treasure Coast Newspapers
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