Florida continues its reign as one of the biggest tourist hotspots in the entire country, if not the world.
Unfortunately, that also brings out criminals who are looking to take advantage of the tourists flocking to the Sunshine State.
And a vile deception left Florida tourists with a bad taste in their mouths.
Florida pizzeria pretends to be a more popular pie maker
Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, has become famous for his One Bite series of pizza reviews on social media.
Portnoy travels to mom-and-pop pizzerias across the country, buys a pie, and gives viewers his review, including a score, when he walks out of the establishment.
So far, he has reviewed more than 1,000 pizza places around the country for the series.
The One Bite series can bring massive amounts of free publicity to a pizzeria featured in the series.
Portnoy has millions of followers on social media and Barstool Sports has become one of the largest independent sports media sites.
But his pizza reviews can cause trouble as well.
A Florida man tried to capitalize on the popularity of a pizza place that Portnoy reviewed on One Bite.
Jose Marti-Alvarez created the Roman Cuisine Pizzeria which targeted people who were staying in hotels near Miami International Airport.
Portnoy had previously reviewed a popular local place called Roman’s Pizzeria in Miami Springs for One Bite.
“The crust is the showstopper for this pizza — super fresh, super light. Good undercarriage,” Portnoy said in his review.
Police arrest fake Roman’s Pizza scammer
Marti-Alvarez was targeting customers staying in the hotels by trying to pass his pizzeria off as Roman’s and then delivering them an awful product.
The real Roman’s Pizzeria and the Better Business Bureau began to receive complaints because of the inferior pies that Marti-Alvarez was serving.
One angry customer complained about getting the wrong order and a terrible quality product.
“Opened food and totally wrong sub. Got a nasty burnt smashed BLT instead of Philly cheesesteak? WTH, how do you get those mixed up? And no salad dressing for my salad,” a review said.
The fake Roman’s was also reportedly overcharging its customers.
Roman’s Pizzeria owner Jesus Roman said that pizzas served by Marti-Alvarez were “bad, uncooked, sometimes they (were sent) in a box with a piece of raw dough.”
“They just give it to them and by (the) time they realize it they’re gone anyway,” Roman said.
Angry customers would even show up to Roman’s Pizzeria to complain about their orders.
“So sometimes they show up upset here to the store claiming ‘Where’s the food?” Roman explained. “We have to explain to them that it’s not us.”
The complaints became so bad that Roman filed a complaint with the police.
Marti-Alverez was then arrested by Miami police for an “organized scheme to defraud” with his fake Roman Cuisine.
The fake pizza fraudster is also facing an aggravated battery charge after he struck a hotel worker with his car when tried to flee after an angry confrontation.
The real Roman hoped that his nightmare was ending after the arrest.
“In a way, I’m glad, because hopefully it will stop,” Roman said. “I didn’t want him to get arrested, but that’s something that had to happen to stop him. It’s not the right thing to do – he could have done it the right way; this wouldn’t have happened.”
Hopefully this will be the end of Florida’s own “pizzagate” and they will no longer have to worry about being burned by the purveyor of phony pizza.