Three Venezuelans — at least one of whom is in the United States illegally — unleashed a “jackpotting” heist on a Sheridan ATM similar to the ones Big Horn County banks suffered recently, court documents indicate.
Keiner Hormidas Sanchez Lopez, 21 of Venezuela, was taken into Sheridan County custody March 22 after authorities sought him for three months, and his case rose to the felony-level Sheridan County District Court on Wednesday.
Two alleged co-conspirators — Elvis David Arellano Campos, 32, and Yezzermy Yemar Perez Escobar, 37 — still show active warrants out of Sheridan Circuit Court.
Perez Escobar is in custody in Denver, Colorado, while Arellano Campos has not yet been captured, Sheridan Police Chief Travis Koltiska told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
All three of the men implicated in the November heist are charged with felony theft, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
Koltiska said he believes the November heist is connected to another ATM hacking in Lovell, Wyoming, from around the same time.
But he’s not certain whether the autumn heists are connected to yet another jackpotting spree unleashed in Big Horn County last month, the chief said.
The Jackpotting
At midday Nov. 29, 2024, Tracy Thorpe of Citco Federal Credit Union in Sheridan reported someone had stolen $31,500 from the ATM in the parking lot, says an affidavit by Sheridan Police Detective Aaron Hartman.
At about 6:26 p.m. the evening prior, security video recorded a black SUV with a ski rack driving up to the ATM. Two men exited the vehicle — one wearing a yellow jacket with a white stripe, who slipped on a ski mask as he approached the machine, says the affidavit.
The second man wore a hoodie and a balaclava-style ski mask.
They were at the ATM for 11 minutes while they hacked it into “maintenance mode” so it would spit out withdrawals five minutes at a time, Thorpe told investigators at the time.
They returned with a third male at 6:48 p.m. The third male wore a blue hoodie and grey ushanka-style had with the hood cinched around his head but with his face visible, the document says.
Little Did They Know
In the hours between the alleged heist and the bank reporting it, Sheridan Police Officer Aaron Bass stopped a black Subaru SUV with a ski rack for traveling 40 mph in a 30 mph zone.
“At this time the theft was not known to officers,” wrote Hartman.
Two men who claimed to only speak Spanish sat in the vehicle.
The driver called himself “Kaemer Ormilla” and lacked identifying paperwork, the document says, adding that police would later learn this was Sanchez Lopez, and that he was an illegal immigrant from Venezuela who’d recently been arrested in Chicago.
The passenger presented an expired Venezuelan driver’s license and identified himself as Elvis David Arellano Campos of Venezuela, the affidavit says. He also had a permit he acquired when he entered the U.S. on March 6, 2024, Hartman noted.
Campos was wearing a grey ushanka hat and had the same facial features investigators would later pick out in the ATM footage, the affidavit says.
The document says officers on scene towed the vehicle and had it inventoried, and they found two ski masks and a bent screwdriver.
Sanchez Lopez was cited for his traffic violations and both men were released, Hartman wrote.
And There’s The Paper
Later that same evening, Sheridan Police Officer Austin Soto stopped a 2004 Mitsubishi Galant with no visible registration driven by Perez Escobar, who had no identification paperwork on him.
Perez Escobar wore the same yellow coat with white stripe investigators would later spot on the ATM video from the heist, the affidavit says.
The Galant was registered to “Keiner Lopez” and the citation Bass had issued earlier that evening to Keiner Sanchez Lopez’s alias name of “Kaemer Ormilla” was in the vehicle, the document says.
The Sheridan Circuit Court issued warrants for all three men in December.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
