BEAUFORT, N.C. — North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, West Virginia, and Tennessee.
What do these five states have in common?
Investigators said a man scammed people in each of these five states.
North Carolina police recently arrested him.
Investigators said he took money promising to repair damaged cars, then stopped answering their calls.
Police said his scheme led to more than $350,000.
Two people in Indiana are among the victims. They said they did their research and still lost out on money.
"Heartbreaking. It was so brutal," victim Bryan Ferry said.
Investigators in Indiana said more than 30 people lost money in a single county.
"It's a huge relief to know that he's actually sitting behind bars right now instead of scamming someone else," victim Darci Bell said.
Bell and Ferry both hired Bragg to restore their vintage Volkswagen buses – giving him thousands in down payments and feeling like they'd done their due diligence.
"Great reviews on Facebook from the VW club," Ferry continued.
Until things went south – Bell said Bragg stopped responding to her when she broke off the contract after he took her bus to Tennessee without asking her.
For Ferry, he showed up at Bragg’s shop thinking his bus was finished, only to find the building with eviction notices on the windows.
Both were able to get their buses back, but Ferry was out $7,500 and Bell was out $14,000.
They and many others went to the Johnson County Sheriff's Office in the summer of 2022.
Bell said she's talked to dozens of apparent victims.
Yet, Bragg was nowhere to be found – until he was arrested nearly 800 miles away in Beaufort, North Carolina.
"There were a lot of agencies with their hands in this to make this happen and we couldn't be happier," Johnson County Sheriff's Office Investigations Commander, Major Damian Katt said.
Katt said they got a tip from that area in the evening and by the next morning, Beaufort police had Bragg in handcuffs.