A U.S. District Judge has sentenced (Sept. 15, 2025) two men from Omaha, Nebraska, convicted of Interstate Transportation of Stolen Money after they scammed funds from a Mobridge area casino.
24 year old Roberto Carlos Gonzalez Miranda was sentenced to five years and ten months in federal prison. Co-defendant Roberto Orellana, age 46, was sentenced to four years and two months in federal prison.
Both Orellana and Miranda were ordered to pay $352,000 in restitution to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Miranda was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund; Orellana, a $200 special assessment.
Court information says shortly after 6am on February 25, 2024, personnel at the Grand River Casino in rural Mobridge received a call from someone claiming to be a U.S. Government official. The caller claimed the casino owed $700,000 in audit fees and that steep fines would be levied if the casino did not immediately make a down payment on the debt. Acting at the direction of the caller, casino personnel took cash from the casino vault and transported it to Mitchell, South Dakota, to make a payment.
Miranda and Orellana occasionally worked as money mules for a transnational criminal organization during the winter of 2023-2024. On February 25, 2024, the organization dispatched them to Mitchell to collect the casino funds. The caller who arranged the fraud was not identified, and the casino funds have not been recovered.
Miranda and Orellana were immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
This case was investigated by the FBI, the South Dakota DCI, the Mitchell Police Department, and the Corson County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Thunem prosecuted the case.
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