Arshdeep Singh, the stepfather of missing 6-year-old boy Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, seen inset, makes a bank deposit on March 22. (Everman Police Department)
The stepfather of a 6-year-old disabled boy who has been missing since last October stole $10,000 before fleeing the United States with his family to India, police in North Texas said on Tuesday evening.
The Everman Police Department recently charged Arshdeep Singh, stepfather to Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, with one count of felony theft for allegedly stealing those funds from his employer in late March.
Everman Police Chief Craig W. Spencer told Law&Crime in a message on Wednesday that no additional updates have occurred since the announcement of the latest felony charge in the case on Tuesday.
At a press conference, Spencer said the missing boy’s stepfather worked as a delivery man who hauled products to convenience stores.
On March 22, the day the family left the country, Singh allegedly stopped at one of his places of employment, the EPD said in a statement released after the press conference. There, the stepfather allegedly made his way into a company safe, which he was able to do “as a part of his normal job responsibilities,” police said.
“Investigators learned that Arshdeep first fraudulently altered the company’s cash deposit records, likely in order to try and prevent detection,” the statement says. “Arshdeep then removed $10,000 in cash from the company safe, traveled to the nearest bank, and deposited $8,000 of that cash into his own personal account.”
Spencer shared images that allegedly show Arshdeep Singh depositing the pilfered cash into his bank account.
According to the EPD, an additional arrest warrant for felony theft has been issued against Singh – in addition to warrants for felony child abandonment and endangerment previously issued against Singh and his wife in direct relation to the boy’s disappearance.
Rodriguez-Alvarez, who suffers from a host of ailments that require attention and patience, has not been seen in months, according to the Everman Police Department. When initially contacted by law enforcement in late March, his mother Cindy Rodriguez-Singh said her son had been living with his biological father in Mexico since November 2022. Detectives later learned that was not true.
Since then, the Rodriguez-Singh family fled the country on a Turkish Airways flight. Officials are currently working to extradite the missing boy’s mother and stepfather back to the Lone Star State.
On Tuesday, police also said they were able to determine that the plane tickets to India for the couple and their six surviving children “were purchased on a credit card belonging to Arshdeep,” citing financial records. Those financial records, the EPD said, led investigators to take note of the “abnormally large cash deposit into Arshdeep’s bank account,” which resulted in the felony theft charge.
Tuesday marked exactly one month since the first AMBER Alert was issued in the Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez case, the EPD noted.
“Since then, this investigative team has spent thousands of man-hours on this case, followed more than 70 leads, issued more than two dozen search warrants, arrest warrants, and subpoenas, and conducted countless interviews,” the police department said. “This investigation has taken us across state and country borders. Investigators have worked to compile a mountainous amount of information, data, and evidence in this case.”
“Each and every single day, we get closer and closer to the answers that we all seek,” the EPD statement continued. “Although it has been a month, and we have not yet found Noel, rest assured that we have not stopped the fight; not even close.”
Everman is a small town some 11 miles south of Fort Worth and is part of the broader Metroplex region.
To date, investigators have searched over 500 acres in North Texas for some sign of the missing boy, but have not found his body.
“These searches have included nearby wooded areas, creeks, ponds, drainage culverts, construction sites, and more,” the EPD added. “These teams consist of expert trained volunteers with specialized equipment and resources including: Drones, Infrared Cameras, LIDAR, Human Remains Detection Canines, Horses, and Rescue Boats.”
Additionally, investigators said that “some items” were recovered from search areas and are being subject to laboratory testing to determine “whether or not they are associated with this case.”
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