Two men were arrested after allegedly trying to pass counterfeit bills at Family Dollar in Wildwood.
Nicholas Tristan Belmonte, 22, entered the store at 400 N. Main St. at about 4 p.m. Saturday and presented two $100 bills, asking that money be loaded onto a Green Dot Visa debit card, according to an arrest report from the Wildwood Police Department. A manager looked at the $100 bills, determined they were fraudulent and denied the transaction. The manager kept the $100 bills and called law enforcement.
Belmonte got into a 2020 gray Kia that was later spotted at the Dollar Tree store on County Road 466A. Belmonte was successful in a similar transaction at that store, using two other fraudulent $100 bills.
Another officer went to the Kia and began speaking with the driver, 25-year-old David Alfredo Velaso-Cruz of Tampa.
He “acted like he was there by himself and didn’t know anybody else or anything going on,” the officer wrote in the arrest report. Velaso-Cruz then claimed he was an Uber driver and had no idea what Belmonte was doing. Velaso-Cruz’s bulging wallet contained “an obvious wad of cash” sticking out of it.
“Upon further observation, an authentic $100 bill was discovered with the exact same serial numbers and markings of the counterfeit/forged bill collected inside Dollar Tree and Family Dollar. This authentic bill was obviously used to make the counterfeit copies,” the officer wrote in the arrest report.
Both men were taken into custody and booked at the Sumter County Detention Center.
