The TikTok influencer who encouraged “fellow Venezuelans” to squat in American homes is being probed by child services after using his baby daughter in his guides to scamming and begging.
Moreno shot to infamy telling his 507,000 TikTok followers, “If a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”
And on Friday he doubled down, repeating the same message, calling squatting “the American dream,” and defiantly boasting that he had the right to “free speech” in the US.
But he also admitted in his stream of social media content, which spans TikTok and Instagram, that his brazen use of his 1-year-old daughter as a prop is now being investigated by authorities — and blamed his Venezuelan followers for reporting him to child services.
“You got what you wanted,” he tells his followers, clutching his daughter as he launches into a tearful rant. “What you did will never be pardoned by God.
“Because of you they will take my daughter away, because of you, because of your evil hearts. It’s incredible that my fellow Venezuelans are capable of this.”
A spokesman for the Franklin County Children Services in Columbus, Ohio, where Moreno has said he lives, refused comment Friday. Attempts to reach Moreno were unsuccessful.
Moreno’s outrageous TikToks have made him a huge presence on the platform. He also has 45,000 followers on Facebook, more than 16,000 on Instagram and posts on YouTube.
He does not appear to be a paid creator on any of them, and none of his posts are sponsored, the other main way influencers turn videos into cash.
Moreno claims he studied to be an engineer in Venezuela, at Fermin Toro University, which is in Lara state, in the western part of the country, and that he traveled through 12 countries to get to the US.
But he also revealed that he had tried to seek asylum with his wife in Canada last year, but came to the US because he did not get free things north of the border.
“They didn’t give us the hotel they promised,” he said in a video posted to his Instagram account last year, showing him and his wife of three years walking through an unnamed cold and deserted city.
“They gave us a month and then kicked us out, and didn’t give us the papers they promised. They didn’t give us a job and didn’t give us asylum.”
Instead he came to the US and has set up in Columbus where he gains views for calling President Joe Biden “mi papa” and offering detailed guides on how to live for free.
“I don’t like to work,” he tells followers. “Boys, in the US there are a million tricks, a million things to do,” he says as he outlines how to live effectively for free in a new country.
In a YouTube video, the migrant pulls out groceries from three large garbage bags that he says were donations, and shows off cans of fruit, cartons of milk, a whole chicken and eggs.
“I’ve concluded that the American Dream is real,” he says, adding that he has lived for more than a year in the US and never had to work. “This is food of the best quality that they just give you.”
In a YouTube post from his wife’s hospital room after she gives birth, he tells his viewers that they paid nothing to have their daughter, and thanks “Papa Biden” for paying.
In Ohio Friday, Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is not related to the TikToker, slammed Biden as being responsible for the influencer.
“Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown’s border invasion is directly responsible for this type of lawless behavior,” said Moreno, who won the Republican primary this week in Ohio and will face off against Democratic incumbent Brown in November.
Moreno’s use of his baby, who is a US citizen because she was born here, includes parading her around with a sign around her neck saying “give me a hug, it’s my birthday please,” and sitting with her in his lap as he waves bundles of $50 notes.
A video taken on the little girl’s first birthday last summer shows the family at a picnic with a hand-scrawled cardboard sign urging passers-by to contribute to the celebration.
In a November TikTok post, Moreno boasted that he regularly takes in $1000 a day from begging.
In another Tik Tok post, Moreno is seen at a drive-through Chase ATM to deposit $500 that he said came from online donations to his daughter from his viewers in Spain.
“Should I spend my daughter’s money on a motorcycle,” he said in a recent post, asking the little girl who is trying to stand up on a bed to agree or disagree.
In another post, he claimed that the federal government gives him and his wife $350 a week to help with their daughter, and shows off supplies of food that they have bought with their WIC card.
The acronym stands for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, a federal program to help low-income families.
Other scams he instructs his followers on include a false claim that they can claim derelict vehicles abandoned on the side of a highway for themselves then sell them for scrap.
He also shows how to scam a constant supply of new clothes by not removing tags from new clothes then returning them over and over, and using alcohol and cotton balls to clean sneakers that can easily be returned even after they’ve been worn.
The video shows his wife trying on a pair of white sandals in a shoe store. “She’s always wearing new clothes and then she just returns them and says she didn’t like them. Boys, in the US there are a million tricks, a million things to do.”
In another post he tells his followers to buy a plastic and velcro cast to wrap around their leg to pretend they are injured.
“Work is for slaves, boys. Remember that work is for slaves. Where have you seen a millionaire work? Don’t humiliate yourself…You have to be creative to ask for money.”
But he has experienced a Spanish-language backlash in the comments being called “Idiot!” “Hopefully, trash like you will not be allowed to stay here much longer,” one said.
Another posted in Spanish this week: “Go back to your country because the US is not a joke.”
