15 Californians charged with running auto insurance fraud ring
The charges include insurance fraud, grand theft by trick and false imprisonment.
The Inland Empire Automobile Insurance Task Force arrested a dozen people believed to be involved in an organized fraud ring that conducted scams ranging from holding vehicles “hostage” to staged accidents. In total, the group ran at least 19 schemes and brought in more than $350,000 from insurance claims.
The charges include insurance fraud, grand theft by trick and false imprisonment. The California Department of Insurance reported that three additional suspects have been charged for their involvement in the fraud ring, but remain at large.
The investigation into the group started when it was discovered that Rosa Isela Santistevan, a non-sworn California Highway Patrol (CHP) employee, was selling traffic collision report face pages.
The fraud ring would use these reports to obtain contact information for people who were in auto accidents, according to the California Department of Insurance.
People involved in the collisions would then be contacted by a scammer, who would pretend to be an insurance company representative calling to arrange for the damaged vehicle to be taken to a repair center. The damaged vehicle would then be picked up and taken to CA Collision, where it would be “held hostage” until the insurance company paid to have it released. CA Collision is owned by Anthony Gomez, who was among the 12 people arrested on May 9, 2024.
The CHP found more than 3,500 traffic collision report face pages at the Pomona home of Esmeralda Parga, who was connected to Santistevan through the fraud ring’s alleged leader Andre Angelo Reyes. All three are currently being held on $700,000 bail.
According to the insurance department, the ring was initially formed after Reyes befriended Santistevan and other CHP employees through donations at various law enforcement events and parties.
Scams involving the collision reports were just the tip of the iceberg. Investigations into the group also uncovered other types of fraud, including “collusive collisions.”
In a cellphone video discovered during the investigation, one of the defendants is seen intentionally crashing a BMW into a Polaris Slingshot. The video shows one suspect doing donuts in the three-wheel motorcycle on what appears to be an empty street. The video then cuts to a shot of the sedan slamming into the Slingshot, drawing a sarcastic “oops” from the person filming the staged accidents.
The scammer then claimed the vehicles were involved in two separate crashes on the freeway. Reyes and four others were involved in this scheme, according to the insurance department.
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