Bizarre $1.2 million fajitas theft scheme leads to arrest

A Texas man was charged with felony theft after investigators linked him to an odd plot to steal more than $1.2 million worth of fajitas over nine years, the Brownsville Herald reported.

Former Cameron County Juvenile Justice Department employee Gilberto Escaramilla missed work one day in August for a medical appointment, the same day a delivery driver called the kitchen about having 800 pounds of fajitas to drop off, the paper said.

A woman informed the driver that the juvenile department didn't serve the Tex-Mex food - but the driver said he'd been delivering it for nine years, Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz told the Herald.

“When Mr. Escaramilla reports to work the next day, he is confronted with the discussion and he admits he had been stealing fajitas for nine years,” Saenz said.

Escaramilla was fired that month and arrested after investigators obtained a search warrant and found packages of the Tex-Mex food in his refrigerator, Saenz explained.

They also checked invoices and determined he would intercept county-funded food deliveries and deliver them to his own customers, according to the newspaper.

He was determined to have stolen $1,251,578 of fajitas, the report added. Escaramilla was arrested last week on a felony theft charge.

“If it wasn’t so serious, you’d think it was a Saturday Night Live skit. But this is the real thing,” Saenz said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.