Crime & Public Safety.
A Willow Grove man is accused of stealing more than $130,000 over several months from customers who trusted him to wire money to their families, but he instead allegedly canceled the transactions and kept the money.
Rafael Gonzalez-Dominguez, 35, of the 200 block of Buckboard Road, is also accused of stealing more than $16,000 in skills games receipts from La Mexicana, a grocery store and restaurant located at the County Line Shopping Center in Warminster Township.
Gonzalez-Dominguez was charged April 15 by Warminster Township Police with two felony counts each of theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property, felony counts of access device fraud and theft by deception, and a misdemeanor charge of passing bad checks, stemming from incidents that occurred between February and April 2023, according to court records.
On April 15, 2023, at 8:57 a.m., police were dispatched to the grocery store to investigate a theft by an employee, identified as Gonzalez-Dominguez, police allege in an affidavit.
The business owner told police that she started receiving complaints from customers saying they gave Gonzalez-Dominguez money to do wire transfers to their families, but he allegedly never transferred the money. The owner found Gonzalez-Dominguez had allegedly been cancelling transactions for months, police said.
On April 13, at 3 p.m., management checked the safe inside the store and found $50,000 in cash was missing, with Gonzalez-Dominguez being the only one besides the owner to have a key to the safe, police said.
Police called Gonzalez-Dominguez on April 15 at 4:10 p.m., and he told police he owned the business Taqueria Aquila in front of La Mexicana and that there was a little bit of trouble, according to the complaint. Gonzalez-Dominguez told authorities he wanted to talk to them and he would be at Warminster Police headquarters in 30 minutes, police said.
On April 15, at 6 p.m., Gonzalez-Dominguez arrived at the police station. Police told him he was accused of stealing $150,000 from La Mexicana, according to the complaint. Gonzalez-Dominguez told police that in June 2022 he started online MCA programs by taking loans out for his business, along with cash advances, per the complaint. The first loan, police said, was for $70,000, but was advised he would only qualify for $20,000.
The agreement was that Gonzalez-Dominguez would have to make daily payments of $300, automatically withdrawn from his account, police said. Gonzalez-Dominguez told police he was given $18,000 out of the $20,000, but, with interest, he had to repay $29,000 for a loan from July 2022 to January 2023, police said.
Gonzalez-Dominguez told police the online loan broker would continue to offer him more loans and he got deeper and deeper into trouble, and kept taking out more loans, according to the complaint.
Police allege Gonzalez-Dominguez took out two loans for $40,000 in August 2022 with daily payments of $400. When he paid 60% of the loan off, they gave him an extra $30,000, according to the complaint. Then, in September 2022, Gonzalez-Dominguez was approved for a third loan for $15,000, with daily payments of $800, police said.
Gonzalez-Dominguez told police he repaid the $15,000 loan in October 2022, and he was able to manage all the loans until January 2023, police said.
In January 2023, Gonzalez-Dominguez told authorities two people scammed him out of money, per the complaint, and he was threatened to be sued at one point. Gonzalez-Dominguez told police he got into several circumstances of loans where his daily payments were $7,000, police said. He told police no one could help him cover the payments.
Gonzalez-Dominguez told police he “was playing with” his boss’s money by paying the companies and paying people, police said. When the owner started to notice, Gonzalez-Dominguez realized he was in a bad position and kept getting deeper and deeper into trouble, according to the affidavit.
Then, his own checks started to bounce, police said, at the end of March 2023. At that point, Gonzalez-Dominguez allegedly began taking money from his employer, police allege.
Gonzalez-Dominguez estimated he stole between $100,000 and $150,000 from La Mexicana. As of April 2023, Gonzalez-Dominguez had two loans left totaling $15,000, police said. Authorities said Gonzalez-Dominguez received loans from Fort Worth Financial, Amsterdam, and Jet Funding.
On April 20, 2023, at 1:43 p.m., investigators met with the owner of La Mexicana. She told police she was discovering more and more theft and turned over copies of written statements from customers who gave Gonzalez-Dominguez money that was never processed or recorded, totaling 19 transactions in the amount of $21, 417.21, police said.
Furthermore, the business owner sent investigators an email with copies of bounced checks from the wire transfer company Dolex Financial Services. Police allege Gonzalez-Dominguez deposited the chekcs with Viamerica and then re-deposited them with Dolex. A record of Viamerica Corporation’s daily transaction report from February 2023 to April 2023 showed a value of $95,009.58, police said. All bounced checks were written from Gonzalez-Dominguez’s business account and his girlfriend’s personal account, authorities allege.
Investigators were also given a thumb drive by the business owner containing a surveillance video of Gonzalez-Dominguez allegedly making multiple transactions, which included making deposits, voiding them out, ripping up the receipts, and throwing them out. In the video, police allege Gonzalez-Dominguez appeared to be stressed and crying multiple times.
On May 8, 2023, at 4:02 p.m., the business owner sent an email to police showing an image of receipts from skill games inside the store. Two days later, she provided a printout of the profits the business made between January 2023 and April 2023, totaling $16,335.02, but Gonzalez-Dominguez allegedly fraudulently reported $483.
On Sept. 5, 2024, at 10:49 a.m., investigators arrived at Bank of America at 723 Street Road in Upper Southampton and served a search warrant for Gonzalez-Dominguez’s bank account, Gonzalez-Dominguez’s girlfriend’s bank account, and the business account for Taqueria Aqulia Inc., according to the complaint. On Oct. 2, 2024, at 12:36 p.m., the account information on all three accounts was emailed to investigators, according to the affidavit.
The warrant revealed that Gonzalez-Dominguez allegedly deposited checks from the three accounts, knowing that the accounts had non-sufficient funds at the time he presented them to Viamerica and then re-deposited them into Dolex, investigators said.
The grand total loss, according to police, was $132,761.81.
All suspects and defendants are innocent until proven guilty. This story was compiled using public court records.
