Sept. 15--Seven men, including five from Stanislaus County, were indicted on federal charges related to a scheme that defrauded insurance companies of at least $1.2 million by staging car crashes and submitting false insurance claims, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Tuesday.
Juan Ortiz Rivas, 38, of Ceres; Oscar Diaz Landa, 45, of San Jose; Victor Hugo Soriano-Villafan, 25, of Modesto; Liobigildo Vargas, 45, of Turlock; Juan Marquez Cadenas, 29, of Patterson; Cristopher Santiago Sanchez-Becerra, 31, of Stockton; and Alfonso Apu, 47, of Modesto were each indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and 10 counts of mail fraud.
On Tuesday morning, Landa, Sanchez-Becerra and Apu were arrested at their homes and Vargas was arrested at his auto body business in Turlock. Soriano-Villafan, owner of a Modesto auto body business, was arrested last week in Las Vegas.
Rivas and Cadenas remain at large.
From October 2011 until August 2014, the defendants are accused of conspiring to stage dozens of car crashes and submit false claims seeking compensation for the damage, according to court documents.
Each time, authorities believe the defendants used two or three vehicles to stage crashes that caused about $5,000 to $10,000 in damage to one side or the rear of a vehicle. The defendants recruited others to be involved in the scheme who would become familiar with the location of the staged crash and cover story, authorities say.
All of the people involved submitted to an insurer a similar cover story that concealed the true cause of the crash, according to the indictment, which also said they commonly used aliases, false identities and false addresses.
The defendants usually used different vehicles in the staged crashes by obtaining numerous, typically salvaged, vehicles as well as false identities to register the vehicles with the Department of Motor Vehicles and obtain insurance policies for the vehicles, authorities say.
According to the indictment, the defendants also would offer to repair the recruited individual's vehicle at one of their automobile repair shops, usually with incomplete repair work, for a fee less than the payment from an insurance company on the damaged vehicle. Those shops include C&R Auto Repair in the 500 block of 12th Street in Modesto and Vargas Auto Body in the 900 block if West Glenwood Avenue in Turlock, authorities say.
If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count of the indictment.
The case is the product of an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and the California Department of Insurance, Fraud Division. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Patrick R. Delahunty and Henry Z. Carbajal III are prosecuting the case.
Erin Tracy: 209-578-2366, @ModestoBeeCrime
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