Rockledge man charged in scheme involving sale of non-existent N95 masks

J.D. Gallop, Florida Today
·1 min read
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A 79-year-old Rockledge man has been arrested in what investigators say was an international, multimillion-dollar scheme to sell non-existent protective face masks to a Canadian healthcare company.

Esmeraldo Enrique was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of organized fraud after the company — which never received the promised N95 masks — contacted authorities in Florida.

A Rockledge man was arrested after state investigators said he carried out an international scheme to sell COVID-19 protective face masks to a Canadian healthcare company. The company never received the masks.
A Rockledge man was arrested after state investigators said he carried out an international scheme to sell COVID-19 protective face masks to a Canadian healthcare company. The company never received the masks.

Enrique was doing business as Enrique Technologies & Trading and got into a deal for more than 20 million masks with the Canadian company Gray & Simcoe Health Corporation in July 2020 as concern over the COVID-19 pandemic grew, Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials reported.

Investigators said Enrique received $500,000 from the company with another $1.8 million — part of a down payment for a $20 million deal — wired to an account in Cairo, Egypt, where the N95 masks were supposedly stored. He later offered to sell the company $40 million worth of the protective face coverings.

Instead, there were no masks, investigators said.

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Florida investigators, working with the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service, Egyptian authorities and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, determined that Enrique was working with a well-known con artist in Egypt to help carry out the scheme, "shopping for vicitms," reports show. When the masks failed to turn up, the Canadian company attempted to get a refund from Enrique, but the money was never returned.

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Enrique was booked into the Brevard County Jail complex in Sharpes. He was being held on a $10,000 bond. No court date has been set.

J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jdgallop@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @JDGallop.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Rockledge man charged in scheme to sell face masks that didn't exist