North Charleston: iPhone Buyer Robbed at Gunpoint During Facebook Marketplace Meetup

A man has been arrested after robbing a victim at gunpoint who had come to buy an iPhone listed on Facebook Marketplace.

A brand-new iPhone 17 Pro Max, listed on Facebook Marketplace, had drawn in an interested buyer. The meeting had been set without much back-and-forth, at a specific address on North Charleston's West Belmont Avenue. The victim waited, confident, when the passenger door of his own car suddenly swung open.

A man stood there, gun raised. The order was blunt: empty your pockets. No room to negotiate, nothing to inspect — just the threat, and the need to comply.

The suspect, 19-year-old Maykel Gonzalez Demaria, didn't get to enjoy his haul for long. He was located and arrested, then charged with armed robbery and possession of a weapon during a violent crime.

This scenario — where the victim ends up trapped inside their own vehicle at the moment of the supposed transaction — comes up again and again in robberies built around online sales. High-value tech items like the latest smartphones stay a favorite target: easy to hide, quick to resell, and rarely traceable once they've changed hands.