Two Are Arrested in Accordion Lesson Scam

A ring of suspected con artists was charged Friday with preying on hundreds of Latino families by offering free accordion lessons to get credit information they used to bilk victims of $500,000, authorities said.

Los Angeles police arrested Delia Milagros Leon, 27, of Woodland Hills and Juan Manuel Rocha, 42, of Calabasas on suspicion of grand theft, identity theft, money laundering, forgery and credit card fraud.

“The victims told us these people had no heart,” said Det. Juan Baello of the Los Angeles Police Department. “They got their kids excited and then vanished, leaving them to make big payments on their credit cards.”

The ring operated phony music schools in Glendora, Long Beach, Montclair, North Hollywood, Panorama City and Riverside for the last two years under names such as Kid’s Musical Kingdom, Universal Children’s Academy and Long Beach Arts Center, Baello said.

They offered free introductory children’s accordion lessons through telemarketing and in the Spanish-language media, detectives said.

A few weeks later, they used pizza parties featuring a performance by a young accordion player to encourage parents to pay for additional lessons, police said.

But after four to six weeks of giving lessons, the suspects would close their school. They would use customers’ financial information, including Social Security and credit card numbers, to get large cash advances from the customers’ credit cards, police said.

“They would ask for an increase to the credit line,” Baello said. “They also asked for additional credit cards to be issued to the suspects’ addresses.”

Meanwhile, the suspects also sold fake bonds to the mostly working-class parents with the promise that the interest earned would pay for future lessons and the principal would be returned, Baello said.

In many cases, the scam left the customers with bills of $2,000 to $10,000, Baello said. One family lost $30,000, after giving the group three credit card numbers, he said.

Police said Leon, formerly Mario Alberto Yunis, used $33,000 of the stolen money to finance a sex-change operation.

A third suspect, identified as Puerto Rican pop singer Luis Omar, is being sought in Puerto Rico.

Leon and Rocha are being held at the Van Nuys jail in lieu of $2-million bail and are to be arraigned Monday in Van Nuys Superior Court. Omar faces similar charges.

Police are asking anyone with information to call Baello or Det. Sharon Horan at (818) 756-8323.