Gainesville man arrested for scheme to steal money from credit union accounts

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Kevon Alex Northover, 32, was booked into the Alachua County Jail early this morning for allegedly calling customers of Campus USA Credit Union and gathering information that allowed him to transfer money out of their accounts.

A Fraud Analyst at Campus USA Credit Union discovered the scheme in March and told the responding Gainesville Police Department officer that the credit union has seen a pattern in which suspects are calling their customers, pretending to be credit union employees, and asking for their account information. The Fraud Analyst said the phone number shows up as a Campus USA phone number. Once the suspects gain access to the customer’s account, they transfer money to another customer’s account within the credit union.

In one incident in December 2023, a victim told the credit union that someone called him from the credit union’s number and asked him to verify the last four digits of his card, his user ID, and the one-time code sent from the credit union. Four transfers were then made from the customer’s account to another account, totaling $2,583.00. The Fraud Analyst said the funds were transferred from the second account to Northover’s account; the second account and Northover’s account were reportedly opened within days of each other at the same location, and the two account owners can be seen together on surveillance cameras inside the credit union. A teller told the Fraud Analyst that the two men said they were brothers.

The investigator reported that Northover’s bank statement showed that after he received the funds from the second account, he made large purchases at Walmart and a CashApp transaction to his own account.

The credit union told the investigator that after they reimbursed the victim for the loss, that left Northover’s account with a negative balance of $2,583.72, all of which was a loss to the credit union.

The Fraud Analyst continued to investigate and said Northover was connected to spoof call cases in September 2023 that resulted in a loss of $29,271.23 to the credit union that was not recovered. The Fraud Analyst told the officer that she believes Northover is the “ringleader” over the spoof calls and a series of new accounts being opened that are later used to transfer money from victims’ accounts to Northover’s account.

Northover has been charged with computer crimes and grand theft for the incident with a loss of $2,583. He is currently serving a two-year state prison sentence with concurrent sentences for grand theft and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and he sent letters to the judge in this case, asking to be transported to Alachua County in the hope that any sentence for the new charges can be served at the same time as his current sentence. Northover has three felony convictions (one violent) and three misdemeanor convictions (one violent). He is currently serving his first state prison sentence, with a projected release date in November 2025. Judge Meshon Rawls set bail at $50,000, but Northover cannot be released until his prison sentence is complete.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.