2ND UPDATE 6:23 P.M. EDT U.S.A. Ponzi-scheme suspect Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho of DFRF Enterprises has been arrested in Boca Raton, Fla. after an FBI investigation — but a new mystery is emerging on how he came into possession of a gold Lamborghini bearing Florida tag DJBU10.
The extremely pricy automobile is shown in at least two online videos that display the tag number and name of Prestige Imports/Lamborghini Miami in the rear license-plate holder. Filho is driving the car in a video that appears on YouTube. (Shown below.)
In a separate video that appears on Instagram, the car purportedly is being driven by Vic Beasley, the Georgia native and Clemson University (South Carolina) football standout who was the first-round pick of the Atlanta Falcons in this year’s NFL draft.
Neither the dealership nor Beasley has been accused of wrongdoing, and the car may be a marketing prop for the dealership on Biscayne Boulevard North in Miami Beach. The PP Blog left messages for comment today at both the dealership and the office of Five Star Athlete Management, the Atlanta-based agency that represents Beasley.
The Blog will include the comments if the calls are returned. The Blog also is awaiting the return of a call it made for comment to the office of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts.
Both of the videos appear to have been made by happenstance by individuals who have no DFRF ties and simply shot footage when the eye-popping Lamborghini appeared when they were nearby.
The person who posted YouTube footage showing Filho in the car appears to be an automobile hobbyist and not to have recognized him at all. Separately, the person who shot the Instagram footage showing Beasley behind the wheel appears possibly to have recognized the football star, but the backdrop also is striking.
In the Beasley video, the car is seen driving at a slow speed across across a grassy area that includes a fire hydrant and low curb, making a right turn onto a side road, drifting through a stop sign and then making another right turn onto a different highway. A sign that briefly appears in the video appears to read “NW 13th St.”
There is a NW 13th Street in Miami, but the Blog could not conclusively determine that’s where the Instagram video was shot.
There also is a discussion thread about Beasley and the Lamborghini at the website of TigerNet, which covers topics pertaining to Clemson athletics. The first post is dated Feb. 18, 2015, weeks prior to the April 30 NFL draft. Another Feb. 18 post in the thread identifies the license number as DJBU10. Still another identifies it as a Florida tag.
The PP Blog first observed Filho driving the car in this DFRF promotional video published May 8, 2015, on YouTube. The tag number, however, does not appear in the video.
As noted above, an apparent car hobbyist with a YouTube account (HAW.Photography) encountered the exceptionally flashy ride while shooting footage in Boca Raton. The YouTube upload date of this video is April 4, 2015. The headline is “GOLD Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 in Boca Raton, Florida.” Most of the video appears to have been shot on U.S. Route 1, which passes through Boca Raton.
A female in the car shooting the video exclaims, “There’s another one!” Another female voice says, “A gold one!”
At one point the Lamborghini makes a right turn into a car wash. The videographers appear to be in a different traffic lane, but eventually make it into the same parking lot. When the video resumes in the parking lot, Filho is seen stepping out of the driver’s side door of the Lamborghini. A woman exits the vehicle from the passenger’s side door.
Whether either of the videos has evidentiary value in the Ponzi cases against Filho was not immediately clear. Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts described him yesterday as a fugitive who met arrest Tuesday while “coming out of a restaurant in Boca Raton.”
Filho is a citizen of Brazil. Prosecutors said Filho had evaded “arrest for more than two weeks” before being caught. The FBI had been seeking his arrest since June 25.
In a civil case against Filho announced by the SEC on July 2, the agency describes him as having spent $2.5 million to acquire “a fleet of luxury automobiles,” including a 2014 Rolls-Royce, a 2015 Lamborghini, a 2014 Lamborghini, a 2012 Ferrari, a 2006 Ferrari, a 2013 Mercedes, a 2014 Cadillac and a 2015 Cadillac.
The SEC has linked Filho to Sann Rodrigues, a figure in the epic TelexFree pyramid- and Ponzi scheme case. TelexFree may have gathered as much as $1.8 billion. DFRF’s haul currently is estimated at $15 million.
Officials at the SEC today Tweeted news of the Filho arrest.
Federal authorities arrest fugitive accused of running pyramid/Ponzi scheme in Massachusetts & Florida. http://t.co/T5kIJuDem1
— SEC Boston (@Boston_SEC) July 23, 2015