The scheme had many moving parts, but was surprisingly simple.
The Inland Empire Auto Insurance Task Force, which has been investigating the plot for nearly two years, said it unfolded like this: Andre Angelo Reyes, 36, allegedly purchased traffic collision reports that contained personal information of the drivers involved in accidents throughout Southern California of 55-year-old California Highway Patrol employee Rosa Isela Santistevan.
Investigators say Reyes would give the documents to a third person, Esmeralda Parga, 26, who would call the drivers and pose as their insurance company. She would allegedly arrange for her damaged cars to be taken to a specific repair center, CA Collision, whose owner, Anthony Gomez, 35, was also involved in the scheme, authorities said.
The repair shop would then contact insurance companies and demand cash to release the cars, authorities said.
Investigators allege the scheme resulted in 19 fraudulent claims resulting in a loss of more than $353,000 to insurance companies. This month, a total of 15 people were involved in the plot, including Reyes, from Corona; Santistevan, of Irvine; Parga, of Pomona; and Gomez, of Jurupa Valley, were charged with insurance fraud, grand theft by deception and false impersonation, state investigators wrote in a news release. The others were:
- Ezequiel Baltazar Orozco, 30 years old, from Los Angeles
- Antonio Terrazas Pérez Jr., 19, from Los Angeles
- Erika García, 31, from Los Angeles
- Israel Ávila Sandoval, 45, of Pomona
- Luis Alberto Ramírez Jr., 32, of San Bernardino
- Robert Arzac, 49, of West Covina
- Antonio Ramírez Pérez, 44 years old, from Los Angeles
- Brian Anthony Lopez, 25, of Anaheim
- Emily Marie Barquero, 26, from Ontario
- Ricardo Parga Jr., 23, of Pomona
- Steven Anthony Alfaro, 38, of Buena Park
The Inland Empire Auto Insurance Task Force, which includes representatives from the California Department of Insurance, the California Highway Patrol, the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office, and the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office. Riverside began its investigation in November 2022 after it was discovered that a CHP employee was allegedly selling traffic collision reports.
Investigators say the scheme began after Reyes donated to various CHP events and parties and became friends with Santistevan and other CHP employees.
While executing search warrants at several properties during the investigation, authorities said they found evidence, including video, of another type of insurance fraud called “collusive collisions,” in which participants intentionally crash cars to collect insurance payments. .
The video showed someone driving a Polaris Slingshot down a dark road at night, listening to loud hip-hop music. The video shows someone doing donuts in the vehicle while another person films it. The next scene shows a BMW crashing into the front of the Slingshot. The man filming the accident says, “Oops.”
Authorities said the people involved in the scam claimed the damage was the result of two separate accidents that occurred on a highway.
“And this is how we do it,” the unidentified man says in the video as the two cars are loaded onto a crane. “Two birds killed with one stone.”
