A man known as the ‘TikTok Trickster’ who allegedly swindled women out of thousands by wooing them with fake photos has been arrested after accumulating warrants across multiple states.
Brenton Fillers, 54, was taken into custody by police in Kentucky Friday for theft and fraud charges brought against him in Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee after they said his ‘vanity’ in posting golf tournament pictures got him caught.
‘It was his vanity that got him. He’s a golfer. His vanity was showing trophies of him winning golf tournaments in Texas that were online, in newspapers, what have you, and that’s how we were able to get the initial hit,’ said Chief John Barber of the Spanish Fort Police Department in Alabama.
Police say Filers would connect with women on TikTok, strike up a relationship with them before asking for money and then ditching.
‘He has never had a job,’ Spanish Fort, Alabama Police Chief John Barber said in an interview with FOX 26 in Houston. ‘His criminal history spans 30 plus years. He’s a prolific con artist.’
A man known as the ‘TikTok Trickster’ who swindled women out of thousands by wooing them with fake photos has been arrested after accumulating arrest warrants across multiple states
Brenton Fillers, 54, was taken into custody by University of Kentucky police on Friday for theft and fraud charges brought against him in Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee
‘It was his vanity that got him. He’s a golfer. His vanity was showing trophies of him winning golf tournaments in Texas that were online, in newspapers, what have you, and that’s how we were able to get the initial hit,’ said Chief John Barber of the Spanish Fort Police Department
According to Chief Barber, the man had been running his gambit for ‘quite some time’ and that he had embraced a pattern of making women fall in love with them before taking off with their money and property.
‘It’s the attention that he’s shown them,’ said Barber of Fillers, who would use both fake names and fake photos to attract victims, police believe.
Officials believe that before TikTok, he had pulled off similar scams cross three decades.
‘He’s done this for quite some time. He knows what key phrases they want to hear and unfortunately that’s what he uses against them,’ the police chief said.
One woman named Tricia told WAVE that she was a victim of his scam and that he car was stolen by the man in Alabama.
‘It’s unreal how many women have probably been affected from dealing with this man,’ the woman said.
She said she first came across his profile on TikTok and that he called himself ‘Jason Mitchell’ at the time.
Tricia said she picked him up from the Mobile airport in Alabama only to find out that he was running from another incident.
According to police, Fillers has been running his gambit for ‘quite some time’ and that he had embraced a pattern of making women fall in love with them before taking off with their money
Officials believe that before TikTok, he had pulled off similar scams cross three decades
‘He has never had a job,’ Spanish Fort, Alabama Police Chief John Barber said in an interview with FOX 26 in Houston. ‘His criminal history spans 30 plus years. He’s a prolific con artist’
‘He came down from West Virginia with a lady that he was with. They were en route to Texas. He said they had to square away something with the IRS. She had fronted him thousand dollars,’ Barber said.
‘He said, “Let’s stop in Daphne, and do the rest of the trip the next day.” He then went to the Mobile Airport, got in touch with our Spanish Fort resident, and said come pick me up,’ said the Spanish Fort police chief.
The police chief also stated that he took off with that woman’s credit cards and cash.
‘He got me to pick him up for the Mobile Airport,’ said Tricia.
After a few days with Tricia, he told her he was going to take her car into the shop only to never return with her vehicle.
‘I hope he gets caught and that we can minimize other people he can do this to,’ Tricia told WAVE.
Ultimately, it was his ‘vanity,’ however, that helped police catch him.
Fillers was able to be caught after winding up in the hospital and calling one of his victims, to whom he gave the name of the doctor treating him.
After police searched online and used his golfing tournament photos to confirm his identity, they went to arrest him at University of Kentucky hospital.
The details of the injury that put him in the hospital are unknown but he was released over the weekend and booked into the Fayette County Detention Center.
This is the University of Kentucky where Fillers was taken into custody Friday by police
‘Today’s arrest demonstrates the importance of collaboration in law enforcement,’ University of Kentucky Police Chief Joe Monroe on Friday.
‘We want to extend our thanks to the Somerset Police Department and the Baldwin County (Alabama) Sheriff’s Office, who have assisted UK Police with the investigation.’
Fillers is facing a theft of property charge in Alabama, felony fraud use of a credit card charge in Arkansas, theft of a motor vehicle charge in Tennessee, and potential additional charges in Kentucky where he was arrested.
He was also charged with the sexual assault of a child but no additional information has been released by police regarding that case.
‘Don’t trust anyone. Don’t trust anyone when it comes to social media,’ said Officer Danielle Strickland of the Somerset Police Department.
‘Just follow your intuition. if you think something is wrong, act on it, don’t let it go,’ Strickland said.
