Gwinnett County police have arrested two people and are searching for a third suspect in connection with a Craigslist scam in which people were duped into paying for Delta flight tickets and Comcast cable boxes that didn’t exist.
Teisha Dunbar, 26, of Decatur, and Nicholas Gates, 29, of Palmetto, were arrested Nov. 17 and charged with two theft by deception charges. Natiya Pope, 40, of Union City, is wanted on the same two charges.
A Grayson woman saw one of the bogus Craigslist ads that police say Dunbar, Gates and Pope posted. The woman paid $1,650 for multiple Delta plane tickets through a mobile app and received confirmation numbers for those tickets, a police report said. When the woman contacted Delta, she learned the confirmation numbers were for seats that had not yet been purchased.
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The woman and her husband contacted the ticket seller again, later identified as Dunbar in the police report. The woman’s husband, posing as a woman over text messages, told Dunbar that they could not pay over a mobile app again and had to pay in cash. The husband arranged for Dunbar to meet them at a salon in Snellville; shortly before Dunbar arrived in a car with Gates and Pope, the husband called police.
When police arrived, Dunbar claimed not to know why she was at the salon, saying she was just along for a ride with Gates and Pope, the report said. Pope, who was driving the car, said she was being paid to drive Dunbar and Gates to the salon so they could buy hair, the report said. Police arrested Dunbar and Gates; the police report does not indicate why Pope was not arrested at that time.
Anyone with information on Pope’s whereabouts is asked to contact Gwinnett County detectives at 770-513-5300. The number of charges Pope, Dunbar and Gates are facing could rise if more victims contact police.
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