Las Vegas woman faces extradition from Mexico in deadly romance scam

A Las Vegas woman suspected of running a romance scam that caused three deaths is facing extradition to the United States after being convicted in a related case in Mexico.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Nevada announced in February 2025 that Aurora Phelps, then 43, had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas on charges that she engaged in a cross-border romance scheme targeting elderly men.

On Thursday, Phelps was sentenced in Mexico to 37 years, six months in prison, following a trial on charges arising from the disappearance and death of Robert “Beau” Erbach, a retired American living in the Guadalajara region.

U.S. officials expect that Phelps, rather than serving out her prison sentence in Mexico, will be extradited to the United States to face the charges pending here, FBI spokeswoman Sandra Breault said.

Erbach was 67 in December 2021 when he allegedly took Phelps, then age 40, on a date to the Hard Rock Hotel in Guadalajara — and afterward never returned home.

His mysterious disappearance worried his longtime friend Corinne Rogan, an actress living in Los Angeles.

“I met Beau in 1974 when I was working as a cocktail waitress at Ebbets Field, a famous nightclub in Denver,” Rogan said in a phone interview this week. “Beau did the sound and lights. He was quite a guy.”

After Erbach vanished, Rogan posted a plea on TikTok: “Have U seen Robert BEAU Erbach? Be in touch!”

Unbeknownst to Rogan and others in Erbach’s circle, his body had turned up by a roadside in Mexico but hadn’t been identified.

As months passed and Erbach remained missing, Phelps allegedly stole his BMW and looted his bank account — including his Social Security payments.

According to the grand jury indictment, Phelps met another of her elderly victims at a restaurant in Las Vegas.

Phelps allegedly drugged the man into a stupor, took him to Mexico, ran up charges on his credit cards, plundered his financial accounts, and left him for dead in a hotel room in Mexico City.

In September 2023, around the same time that Phelps was arrested in Mexico, she was indicted by the grand jury in Las Vegas on 21 counts of kidnapping, fraud and identity theft related to four alleged victims.

The grand jury indictment was originally filed under seal to protect the confidentiality of the ongoing investigation. But in February 2025, after the FBI discovered seven more alleged victims, the indictment was unsealed as part of an effort to enlist the public’s help.

At a news conference announcing the unsealed indictment, Spencer Evans, who at that time was special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, explained how Phelps allegedly carried out her scheme:

“Once she incapacitated her victims, Phelps stole their cars, accessed their bank and brokerage accounts to withdraw cash, used their credit cards to make a variety of purchases, including luxury retail goods and gold, and even attempted to access their Social Security and retirement accounts.”

Three of the four victims in the indictment were found dead shortly after their encounters with Phelps, Evans said. One died in Southern Nevada, according to a graphic of a timeline presented by Evans.

The victim who survived lived in Henderson and spent five days in a coma after Phelps allegedly drugged him. Phelps allegedly liquidated $3.3 million of the man’s Apple stock and attempted to transfer the proceeds to a bank account that she controlled.

Phelps, who has dual citizenship, owned residences in Las Vegas and Guadalajara and went by several aliases, including “Aurora Flores,” according to the indictment.

The FBI is asking anyone with information about Phelps’ alleged romance scheme to complete an online form or call 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Doug Kari is an author and investigative journalist who writes about true crime. Staff writer Akiya Dillon contributed to this report.