09-04-2025
Details emerge in $750,000 fraud case in Berks
Like many members of Santiago J. Torres' extended family, a Wyomissing couple in their early 60s invested money with him because he had married into the family and worked as a financial adviser.
They trusted him when he promised above-market returns on investments, Berks County detectives said, so they wrote checks for annuities or certificates of deposits and didn't worry when they never once received an account statement.
In the case of the Wyomissing couple, they wrote a check for $110,000 in August 2022 for Torres to invest in an annuity.
Torres told the couple he had set up the annuity account through his employer, a well-known investment banking service, detectives said. He had also recently purchased a home in Sinking Spring for more than $370,000, putting in nearly $100,000 in home improvements including a patio.
He provided the couple with the annuity account number that the woman wrote on the memo line of the check.
The annuity was to be paid out over six years with monthly payouts of $1,650, investigators said.
Until last summer, all seemed well. The couple received a total of 18 payments, which were received from a credit union account belonging to Torres.
They became alarmed in summer 2024 when the wife checked with the financial institution that issued the annuity purchased by her late uncle, for whom she was named estate executor. The company had no record of any such annuity, detectives said.
The couple believed Torres kept $50,000 the uncle had invested to support his own lifestyle rather than to purchase an annuity, detectives said. They in turn wondered about the money they had invested with Torres.
They reached out to other family members and friends, most of whom are senior citizens, who together, according to investigators, provided about $750,000 to Torres under the belief that their money was being invested in annuities, CDs and other financial investment products.
A total of 11 victims who are still owed a combined total of $468,414 have been identified to date, investigators said.
Torres, 41, of Sinking Spring surrendered to county detectives Monday, accompanied by his attorney, to face multiple counts of theft by deception, identity theft, forgery, access device fraud and related counts.
He remained free following arraignment to await a hearing.
According to detectives:
Detectives with the district attorney's office began investigating in August after the allegations of theft and embezzlement were made.
As with the Wyomissing couple, none of the other victims received a statement but were not concerned because they trusted Torres, with whom they were related by blood or marriage or shared a friendship, was managing their money well. They subsequently learned the financial institutions had no record of their investments.
At times, some victims said, Torres was late or missed a payment, but he made up the owed amount in the next month's payment, sometimes by check.
Among the victims was his father and stepmother, whose finances Torres managed. They wrote numerous checks between 2019 and 2024 totaling $160,000 for Santiago to invest for their retirement but have received no repayment.
Detectives learned Torres also opened a joint bank account with the couple without their knowledge and took out several loans and credit cards, leaving them with various unpaid debts.
He also left them with a $399,000 mortgage on his home in the first block of Winding Brook Lane. His father and his wife thought they had co-signed for the home to help Santiago and his wife secure a mortgage but later learned the mortgage was only in their names.
Detective David Lehman said he spoke to the 67-year-old man and his wife.
'Together,' he wrote in the affidavit, 'they are still figuring how deep the deception, theft and fraud is and are emotionally cursed by what they are learning. They really trusted Santiago to handle their income taxes and investment accounts.'
