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A Virginia man believed to be involved in widespread home-improvement scams that have cost Montgomery County residents more than $500,000 over several years was arrested last week by federal detectives in a Miami hardware shop.

Members of the United States Marshal's Service Fugitive Task Force arrested Leslie Alberto Irias, 39, of the 200 block of Pershing Avenue NW in Leesburg, Va., on Feb. 24. The arrest came after one of his co-workers saw him on the show "America's Most Wanted," which featured Irias and Mario Ramirez-Cadenas for their alleged home-improvement scams, said Cpl. Dan Friz, a Montgomery County police spokesman.

Irias and Ramirez-Cadenas, 25, of no fixed address, are accused of defrauding a 55-year-old Wheaton woman and her family out of more than $90,000 while posing as licensed home-improvement contractors, Friz said. They have also allegedly committed other scams across the county and in Virginia, said Montgomery County Police Detective B. Mengedhot.

Irias will be flown back to Montgomery County in the coming days, where he faces several criminal and civil charges, some relating to broken contracts from his Rockville construction company, Irias Construction Inc., Friz said. Across the nation, Irias faces more than two dozen charges and there are five warrants out for his arrest, Friz said.

Ramirez-Cadenas was arrested in Wichita, Kan., on domestic violence charges Dec. 23, 2009, Friz said. Several days later, he was extradited to Maryland, where he was released on a $7,500 bond Jan. 19. His lawyer, Rockville-based Charles Lipscomb, said he will try to work out a plea agreement with prosecutors as his April 5 court date approaches.

"There's a lot of people involved and a lot of money that was allegedly taken," Lipscomb said of the complexity of the case, some of which centers around checks of an undisclosed amount that Ramirez-Cadenas allegedly cashed from Irias' construction company.

A national manhunt began after Nov. 11, 2006, when a Wheaton woman and her husband agreed to give Irias and Ramirez-Cadenas a down payment of $90,000 to tear down a house on a property they owned at 12323 Dewey Road and build a new home in its place, according to complaints filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court by the Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection.

The couple said they first met Irias while he was working on a neighbor's house and asked him if he could build them a larger home. They laid out plans for a five-bedroom house to Irias and took out a second mortgage to afford the construction, they said. Irias originally asked the couple for the full $200,000 cost up front but eventually agreed to a smaller down payment, said the husband, who owns and lives in another house with his family on nearby Big Bear Court.

"It was our dream house," said the husband, who asked that he and his wife not be named. "Now our dreams [went] away."

Irias and Ramirez never began construction on the Dewey Road house, the couple said. After digging a hole in the couple's front yard and ceasing construction on their neighbor's house, Irias stopped all work, claiming he was ironing out permit issues, according to charging documents filed in the Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection.

The Wheaton couple said they became suspicious and quickly discovered by calling their neighbors the men had defrauded several other residents in the area. When the couple tried to contact Ramirez-Cadenas and Irias, they found the contractors' phones were disconnected and both the men and their construction company had disappeared, according to the charging documents.

In June 2007, the wife called police, and detectives from the county's Financial Crimes Section pieced together similar complaints from the Office of Consumer Protection to realize the men had conducted a full-scale scam, according to court records.

Detectives said they determined the men had carried out the same type of fraud scheme at least five times in Northern Virginia, Germantown, Wheaton, Sandy Spring and Silver Spring. The men are responsible for defrauding residents out of more than $500,000, police said.

"That's just the stuff that's reported," Friz said. "So who knows what the guys have gotten out of other people over the years."

County police believe Irias, a Nicaraguan immigrant, transferred large sums of money to Nicaragua before fleeing Maryland, according to charging documents.

County officials say home-improvement scams have become more prevalent as home contracts dwindle and owners hunt for deals.

Phony contractors can get away with a large scheme, because most home-improvement scams aren't reported to police, Mengedhot said.

"A lot of times, people get embarrassed that they gave money to somebody for whatever, and then it falls through," he said.

The cases that are reported are usually treated as civil matters or complaints in the Office of Consumer Protection. While the office can prosecute the scams, detectives don't investigate until police recognize a pattern of fraud, Mengedhot said. By then, the scammers have usually left town, leaving behind paper trails of fraudulent post office boxes and phone numbers, he said.

"The bad guys are concealed within the consumer law or the civil law, where they can hide by claiming they have a contract," he said.

And it's relatively easy to present a false, yet official-looking, certificate to unsuspecting residents, said Ralph Vines, an administrator with the Office of Consumer Protection. The county's Circuit Court issues business licenses to applicants for a fee, which legally enables someone to conduct business in the county. However, Vines said a county business license is not the same as a professional license to build a home, which is issued by the state and requires rigorous testing.

Vines said the Office of Consumer Protection is in talks with the Circuit Court to discern how a business license is used and handed out. In the meantime, there are steps consumers can take to analyze a potential contractor's license, such as contacting the Office of Consumer Protection.

The county police's Financial Crimes Section, which can be reached at 240-773-6330, would like to hear from anyone who may know the whereabouts of Irias. Callers may remain anonymous.