A Maryland man is facing felony charges after investigators say he’s linked to the theft of nearly $39,000 that a Central Florida couple wired during what they thought was a routine home closing. Matthew and Stefanie Brock were preparing to close on a new house when they started getting emails that appeared to come from their title company, setting off a chain of events that drained their savings and left them chasing down a stranger’s bank account on the other side of the country.
The emails looked legitimate at first glance, according to WKMG, which reported that the sender’s address was nearly identical to the title company’s real one, with a single-character alteration in the web domain: it ended in “.co” rather than “.com.”
In January 2025, the Brocks received wiring instructions directing them to send $38,805.17 to what they believed was an account tied to their title company, according to the arrest affidavit cited by WKMG. They wired the money that same day, unaware the instructions were fake. It wasn’t until later that the couple learned the title company never actually received their funds.
Tracing the Money to North Carolina
Investigators with the Lake Wales Police Department traced the electronic payment to a North Carolina bank account belonging to Cecil Porter Bartu, a 41-year-old Maryland man. The account had been opened nearly two months before the Brocks’ wire arrived, and according to the station’s report, no other money had passed through it beforehand.
The same day the $38,805.17 wire landed, Bartu walked into a bank branch and withdrew $33,100 in cash, per the same account. Security footage captured the transaction, and a Raleigh police officer later identified Bartu from a still image. Investigators also said an additional $485.50 was pulled from two ATMs in Charlotte that same day.
Bartu then went to a second bank branch but was turned away. The remaining funds had already been placed on hold. The bank ultimately closed his account and returned what was left to the Brocks, the outlet reported.
Bartu, 41, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, WKMG reported. Records related to the case, including hearing dates and the arrest affidavit, may be accessible through the Polk County Clerk of Court.
The Brocks have described the ordeal in stark terms. On a fundraising page, Matthew Brock wrote that a criminal had intercepted their emails and posed as their title company, and that the family wired $38,805.17 believing they were following the title company’s real instructions, according to the GoFundMe page set up on their behalf.
A Growing National Problem
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 21,442 business email compromise complaints in 2024 alone, with close to $2.8 billion in reported losses, making it the second-costliest crime category tracked that year even though it ranked seventh in complaint volume, according to data reported by Nacha. Between 2022 and 2024, reported losses from the scheme topped nearly $8.5 billion nationwide.
The Association for Financial Professionals has found that 63% of organizations experienced a business email compromise attempt last year alone, Nacha reported. Rule changes set to take effect across the banking network in 2026 are intended to cut down on successful fraud attempts and make it easier to recover money once a scam has occurred.
The FBI advises anyone targeted by this kind of scam to report it through the Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. For the Brocks, the damage from one overlooked letter in a web address is still working its way through the Polk County court system as Bartu awaits trial.
