A Boston trash collector and his wife were allegedly abducted at gunpoint outside a Roxbury house last month by masked men demanding money over a check that turned out to be fake, according to police. Karl Timolus and his wife, Elorah Zamor, were named as victims in a kidnapping-for-extortion case that has since led to an arrest warrant for a man police say orchestrated the scheme, Shoudy Myke Nepius.
According to MassLive, Nepius knew Zamor from when the two worked together at a Burlington Coat Factory in 2023. Police say Nepius later asked Zamor to help deposit a $16,000 check, and in June, Zamor tried to deposit more than $35,000 tied to the scheme, police said. Bank staff at Eastern Bank eventually determined the check was fraudulent, and the funds were clawed back from the couple's account.
Zamor told investigators, according to court documents cited in the report, that a friend had asked for help depositing a check in exchange for $3,000, and she said she did not know why Nepius needed the check deposited in the first place. Timolus and Zamor reportedly owed $3,000 in connection with their rental house, a debt that appears to have factored into their decision to go along with the request.
A Late-Night Call Leads to an Ambush
On July 23, Nepius allegedly called Zamor and told her to come outside a house in Roxbury. Three men then took her to pick up Timolus before driving the couple to another location, per the report. One of the men wore gloves, and Nepius and two others were dressed in black clothing and masks, according to police.
During the encounter, the report states that the caller accused Zamor and Timolus of taking the money and said, “Karl owes me sixty thousand dollars.” The kidnappers threatened the couple over the $16,000 check, according to the police report, and one of the men allegedly threatened to kill both victims if they did not hand over the money, according to court documents. The caller also threatened to reveal where police could find Timolus's body. At one point, the three men tried to separate Zamor and Timolus during the ordeal.
Charges Loom for Both Sides
Nepius now faces charges including kidnapping for extortion and threat to commit murder, and an arrest warrant for him was issued Thursday. But police say Zamor and Timolus are also expected to face charges, including forgery of a check, since they were the ones who deposited the fraudulent funds.
That dual status highlights a legal wrinkle prosecutors will have to sort through. Under Massachusetts law, kidnapping carries up to 10 years in state prison, but when the abduction is tied to extortion, the penalty can rise to life imprisonment, according to the Law Offices of Stephen Neyman. Forgery and uttering a false check, the charges Zamor and Timolus reportedly face, carry penalties of up to 10 years in state prison or up to two years in a house of correction, per FindLaw.
Whether prosecutors can make a forgery case against the couple may hinge on intent. To convict someone of uttering a false check under Massachusetts law, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person knew the check was forged and intended to defraud, according to the Law Office of Paul R. Moraski. That distinction matters here, since Zamor told investigators she was simply helping a friend and did not know why the check needed depositing at all.
How the Scheme Exploited Banking Rules
Eastern Bank has separately warned consumers about exactly this kind of scheme, in which fraudsters convince people to deposit checks into their own accounts and then move the money, only for the bank to reverse the deposit once the check is flagged as invalid. Eastern Bank's online and mobile banking agreement specifies that all mobile deposits are provisional and subject to verification, giving the bank the right to immediately debit accounts for checks that bounce or are found fraudulent.
The scheme playing out in Roxbury is part of a much larger national pattern. Financial institutions filed 682,276 Suspicious Activity Reports for check fraud in 2024 alone, according to data reported by the Texas Bankers Association, part of a check-fraud surge fueled by mail theft and altered deposits. More recent figures from Forvis Mazars US show check fraud still accounted for 7.46% of all bank suspicious activity filings in 2025, keeping it among the top reported categories of financial crime nationwide.
The neighborhood where the alleged abduction took place has its own troubled safety record. Boston Police Department statistics show District B-2 in Roxbury recorded 337 violent crimes through mid-2025, one of the highest concentrations among the city's 11 police districts. Timolus's job as a trash collector also places him within Boston's contracted waste system, where the Department of Public Works oversees curbside collection through private haulers such as Capitol Waste Services under a five-year agreement that began in 2024.
It remains unclear whether Nepius has been taken into custody since the warrant for his arrest was issued Thursday, and no additional details on his whereabouts have been released. The case underscores how a single deposited check, once flagged as fraudulent, can spiral from a frozen bank account into an alleged kidnapping with threats of murder.
