In retrospect, Drew Gordon says, he should have been more wary of the well-dressed man at the Beverly Hills BMW dealership with a deep voice, suave ways and a business offer that seemed too good to be true.
But he appeared to be both well-to-do and well-connected, buying a pair of pricey luxury cars on the spot and introducing himself as Alfredo Trujillo Fox, the brother of former Mexican President Vicente Fox, Gordon recalled.
"I have a perfect business for you," Gordon said Trujillo told him.
Three weeks later, Gordon, a chiropractor, said he signed a contract with Trujillo to invest in a cellphone radiation shield for children, and cut him two checks for $25,000, to be repaid in six months with a handsome return.
But soon after Trujillo received the money, he changed his address and phone number, stopped returning calls and seemingly vanished with his loot, Gordon said.
Gordon is one of several Beverly Hills investors who allege in lawsuits that Trujillo posed as a close relative of Vicente Fox as a ploy to get them to invest in bogus business opportunities in Mexico and Los Angeles. Although Gordon settled his suit, he said Trujillo has failed to make good on the agreement. Several other disgruntled investors said they have taken their complaints against Trujillo to law enforcement authorities. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office confirmed that an investigation into Trujillo was underway.
Trujillo, who filed for bankruptcy protection in December, does not deny that he owes Gordon and other creditors a combined $1.5 million, according to court documents he's filed in support of his bankruptcy case. He told The Times in a phone call from Las Vegas that he was a successful real estate investor who had fallen on hard times and was forced to sell his Rolls-Royce and a collection of expensive watches. He denied, however, that he ever posed as Vicente Fox's brother to solicit money, explaining that he had added "Fox" to his legal name Alfredo Trujillo in recent years because it was his mother's middle name.
Polished style
His website, which was dubbed the "Official Site" for Alfredo Trujillo Fox, provides a long list of accomplishments. According to the site, Trujillo, 65, developed technology to track abducted children and sex offenders, became a shaman of the Maya people, studied herbology for eight years with Maya healers and Native Americans, concocted a formula against parasites pending approval by the FDA, invented a device to block cellphone radiation and was working on building two 70-story towers in downtown Los Angeles. (The website was taken down after a Times reporter contacted Trujillo through an e-mail address listed on the site.)
Criminal court records in Arizona, however, paint a very different picture: Twenty years ago, Trujillo -- then using the names Raul Trujillo Mier and Alfredo Trujillo Guarneros -- pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and was sentenced to 10 years in prison after investors in Florida and Arizona complained that he had disappeared with their money.
Trujillo said his Arizona prison term stemmed from "a very minor thing."
The Arizona prosecutor who handled Trujillo's case disagreed, describing him in one court document from 1988 as a deft liar and career con artist.
"His silver tongue, polished style and vanishing act served him well," John Evans, the prosecutor, wrote in a sentencing memo at the time, urging the judge to grant the maximum sentence of 10 years.
Back then, Trujillo said he was a lawyer "with family connections in the highest levels of Mexican business and government." He defrauded victims of at least $76,000, according to criminal court records. When suspicions about Trujillo arose in Phoenix, he left town and reemerged in Tucson as an international consultant, this time under a different name.
In Tucson, Trujillo engaged in elaborate currency-exchange and real-estate schemes, the prosecutor alleged in court documents.
But before authorities could arrest him, Trujillo seemed to vanish once more, dodging private detectives hired by those he allegedly defrauded.
He resurfaced in Florida in 1987, where he again promised to connect businessmen with rich Mexican investors, according to court records.
His fortunes soured when a detective there connected him with the crimes he was wanted for in Arizona.
"This is a lifestyle," said Evans, the Arizona prosecutor, in an interview with The Times earlier this year.
"It's the old con -- he looks successful, he can talk the talk, he drops the names and can't produce because he isn't any of that."
Trujillo served six years of his 10-year prison sentence before he was released on parole, records show.
When Trujillo arrived in Beverly Hills several years ago, investors said they were charmed by the man with a limp and a deep Ricardo Montalban voice.
In conversations with investors and The Times, he casually spoke of his involvement in multibillion-dollar real estate projects.
