A man was able to defraud a Las Vegas casino out of more than $1m after convincing an employee that he was the hotel owner. Pretending he needed to get emergency payments for the fire department, 23-year-old Erik Gutierrez carried out the con at the downtown Circa Hotel & Casino.

Police went to the property on June 17 after a person in the casino’s security office contacted detectives about “an unknown person” who was claiming to own the hotel and was seeking $320,000 as an emergency fire department payment.

con artist claimed that the fire department needed the money for safety devices

Police then talked to the cage supervisor who had been in contact with Gutierrez, who said that the con artist claimed that the fire department needed the money for safety devices. The supervisor had already given cash totaling almost $1.2m to Gutierrez on multiple occasions off-site.

The authorities managed to track down Gutierrez, finding a large bag of cash with the Circa name on the bag after executing a search warrant at his residence. Detectives arrested the man and he was told to stay away from the Circa casino if he makes his $25,000 bail.