CHATTANOOGA, TN — Following an investigation by the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) Patrick Wayne Davis was arrested for odometer fraud, identity theft, and felony theft on Tuesday, March 11 in Knoxville. Davis allegedly altered the odometer of a 2004 Honda Accord over 120,000 miles. He then fraudulently advertised the vehicle on “Craigslist “as a low mileage vehicle and subsequently sold it at a much higher price.
This case stemmed from a complaint taken by the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office in Cleveland, Tenn. Bradley County then requested the assistance of the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
THP Sergeant Thomas Clower, working with the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office, was able to identify Davis as a suspect in their initial investigation. They discovered that Davis illegally acted as the original owner of the Honda by taking the name of a man from Michigan. Agents with the Highway Patrol’s CID also located physical evidence in the Honda Accord.
On Thursday, March 13, Sergeant Clower and THP Interdiction Plus Sergeant Greg Roberts located Mr. Davis in Knoxville. Davis was arrested on odometer fraud, theft between $1,000 to $10,000 and identity theft. He was booked in the Knox County Jail. A court date will be set for the Knox County Criminal Court.
The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security’s (www.TN.Gov/safety) mission is to ensure that our state is a safe, secure place in which to live, work and travel; enforce the law with integrity; and provide customer-focused services professionally and efficiently.
Big profits overseas for stolen luxury cars, SUVs, even family vehicles.Your car may be on a voyage to somewhere far, far away … Canada is a major auto-exporting country. Trouble is, some of the cars, trucks and SUVs headed abroad already have owners. While auto theft rates are falling, the lucrative export trade in stolen vehicles shows little sign of going down. By some estimates, 20,000 luxury cars, SUVs and even bread-and-butter family rides are ending up in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central America every year.Vehicles stolen on the Prairies tend to be boosted by joyriders, often looking for something to use to commit other crimes. But the metropolitan areas of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are rich hunting grounds for organized auto-theft rings that funnel stolen wheels overseas.Montreal is the principal exit port for stolen vehicles going overseas – more than 500 stolen vehicles were seized on the docks there last year – followed by Halifax and Vancouver. Some are also shipped by rail across the U.S. border, then onto ships in ports like Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Baltimore, Maryland, says Ben Jillett, a former RCMP officer who now works for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, helping recover some stolen vehicles from foreign countries.They arrive often in places you’ve never heard of before reaching their ultimate destinations. Flip through the gallery to find out what five top locations are.
Tema, Ghana
This west African port city is one of two popular entry points for stolen vehicles destined to be sold on the continent. Automobile taxes and import duties are very high in African countries, especially for luxury models, which makes illegally imported stolen vehicles very attractive. Insurance Bureau investigator Ben Jillett and his colleagues have seen Canadian vehicles in Africa with their original provincial license plates, which apparently give the car added cachet. One car even had a parking pass for Toronto city hall. Ghanian media have reported government promises to crack down on lax import enforcement.
Tin Can Island, Nigeria
This major container port near Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, is also a key channel for stolen vehicles heading into the continent, says Jillett. While luxury cars and SUVs are in high demand, Jillett, who worked in west Africa, says Toyota models of all kinds are the most popular, especially the RAV4 compact SUV. They’re rugged and parts are easy to obtain. And if your Toyota Corolla or Camry has disappeared without a trace, there’s every chance it’s now working as a taxi in some African or Middle Eastern city.Condition isn’t that critical, even with luxury cars, Jillett and his IBC colleague Charles Rabbat, who works with Canada Border Services Agency and police to intercept stolen vehicles in Montreal and Halifax, point out. Vehicles often arrive with dings and dents because they’re not well-secured in their containers. Doesn’t matter – they find ready buyers.
Kotka, Finland
This Finnish port, along with Turku, Finland, is a known entry point for stolen vehicles headed into Eastern Europe. Jillett and Rabbat say former Soviet Bloc countries, especially in the Balkans, remain lucrative markets for stolen cars. East European crime rings have been discovered with tentacles reaching to Central America. Stolen vehicles also go through ports at Antwerp, Belgium, Rotterdam, Holland and Bremerhaven, Germany.The IBC has some success repatriating exported vehicles (at a cost to the owner) but prospects fall off outside of European Union and G8 countries. Jillett says former East Bloc countries such as Poland are improving and he’s even seen progress in Kosovo. But a major impediment is the lack of integration of North American and Interpol stolen-vehicle, which makes it harder to confirm a suspect exported vehicle is actually stolen.
Beirut, Lebanon
TThe Middle East, including Israel, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, are tagged as stolen-car hotspots by the IBC. Containerized vehicles make their way via Genoa, Italy and to eastern Mediterranean ports such as Beirut. Jillett says the advent of electronic ignition immobilizers has spurred the growth of fraud as a way of acquiring vehicles. Theft rings, often using stolen identities, lease or buy vehicles on credit and drive them straight into containers or to staging areas for later shipment. A few years ago 165 vehicles financed in Toronto were traced to the Middle East, says Jillett. It’s often hard to confirm a vehicle is even stolen because the bank hasn’t reported the financing in default. It also allows rich customers to get vehicles stolen to order. And not only cars. Jillett says a Saudi police officer told him he found stolen snowmobiles, imported to the desert country just for their novelty value.
Hong Kong
China has begun tightening rules on the importation of older-model vehicles, mainly for environmental reasons, but that hasn’t completely choked off the demand for imported stolen cars. Hong Kong is one entry point but Jillett says vehicles shipped to Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand often are really destined for China. The IBC says the trade moves out of Vancouver and Seattle but the extent of it isn’t clear. RCMP Sgt. Gord Elias of British Columbia’s integrated auto crime team says there have been few seizures recently and the B.C. stolen-vehicle recovery rate averages about 92 per cent, including Metro Vancouver, compared with as low as 50 per cent for Metro Toronto. Elias says that suggests organized export-based theft rings aren’t as active yet on the West Coast and that those that do leave from Vancouver were shipped in from elsewhere in Canada.Federal government has toughened the law, creating separate Criminal Code offences for auto theft – previously covered as theft over $5,000 – which carries a mandatory minimum six-month sentence for an auto thief caught three or more times. There are also new sections covering the alteration or removal of the vehicle identification number and possession of a stolen vehicle for the purpose of trafficking. Border services agents now also have the power to detain suspected stolen vehicles without a police officer being present. Jillett says it’s hoped these tools will help cut the flow of stolen vehicles abroad.
By Mike Sunnucks – Senior Reporter, Phoenix Business Journal
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne has filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against a five affiliated car rental companies after receiving more than 150 complaints about service and pricing.
Horne filed the lawsuit against Saban’s Rent-A-Car LLC, DS Rentco Inc. and A-AAAble Rental Ltd. The Attorney General’s Office said those companies have been doing business as Phoenix Car Rental and Saban’s Rent a Car. The Attorney General’s Office said the companies are owned by or affiliated with Dennis N. Saban.
Calls to Phoenix Car Rental and Saban’s were answered by the same person who said the former was not affiliated with Saban and then said the latter was under new management. He declined further comment.
The Attorney General’s Office said it sent an undercover agent in to pose as a customer. The agent claims he was overcharged, denied a copy of the rental agreement and was falsely told he would be arrested if he drove outside the Phoenix area because of specially coded licenses plates.
Prosecutors also allege the car’s odometer reading was false.
“Many customers complained about this businesses failure to disclose additional fees to renters, and stated that Mr. Saban became abusive when they inquired about extra charges added at the end of the rental.” Horne said.
Online fraudsters are going upscale and targeting unsuspecting buyers of newer-model and luxury cars, the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council warned Friday.
“This represents a change in strategy by curbsiders and fraudsters,” said Terry O’Keefe, spokesman for OMVIC. “Curbsiders, unlicensed dealers who usually pose as private sellers, used to target buyers of inexpensive economy vehicles. Now, we’re seeing a shift towards newer and high-end vehicles such as Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, and even newer-model pick-ups, which command higher prices and higher profit margins. Unfortunately, just as curbsiders commonly misrepresent themselves, they also misrepresent the vehicles they sell, which are often insurance write-offs, accident-damaged or odometer-tampered.”
O’Keefe also said he knows of six Ontario residents who lost a total of about $250,000 to phoney websites claiming to selling luxury cars such as Ferraris and Corvettes.
Car buyers have to be doubly vigilant: lurking in online classifieds are not only curbsiders, but out-right fraud artists operating fictitious dealerships supposedly based in the U.S, said O’Keefe. These two trends are converging when it comes to car-buying rip-offs, he said.
Residents of border cities, such asWindsor, need to be extra careful as they are accustomed to shopping across the border, said O’Keefe.
“Consumers should understand they are only protected byOntario’s consumer protection laws when they buy from an OMVIC-registered dealer,” added O’Keefe. “If they buy privately or outside the province and something goes wrong, OMVIC can’t help.”
These fraudsters target Canadians by advertising in Canadian online marketplaces, offering high-end and exotic vehicles at attractive prices, he explained. “The fake dealerships had polished websites and phony reviews for the dealerships on numerous other websites,” he said. “Unfortunately neither the dealerships nor the cars they purported to offer existed. We know of numerous victims who lost tens of thousands of dollars each.”
These online techniques persuade “even smart yet strongly motivated buyers to drop their guard and chase the great buy they’ve always dreamed of owning,” said O’Keefe. “And, online often means the crimes are borderless and faceless so it’s much more difficult to verify and catch criminal activity.”
A survey carried out for OMVIC highlighted a heavy reliance by car buyers on online sources of information. For example, 40 per cent of respondents visited a dealer website; 34 per cent visited an automobile-specific classifieds site (e.g., autotrader.ca); and 23 per cent relied on other online classifieds (e.g., Kijiji, Craigslist).
Research from the Used Car Dealers Association last year found that almost one-third of vehicle ads on online sites were placed by curbsiders. “They’ve mastered using the Internet to make their appeals look professional and authentic,” O’Keefe said. . “Often their vehicles are priced below market value. Consumers should see this as a warning, not an opportunity.”
A trainee solicitor has been found guilty of being part of a car clocking ring which generated thousands of pounds.
Karmjit Sohal, aged 24, allowed thousands of pounds in cash to pass through her bank account to trade vehicles in the racket which also involved her brother Inderjit Singh Sohal and a cousin called Jatinder Sandher.
The operation was based at Enzo Motors, inGreat Bridge Street, WestBromwich, and Netherton Motors, inHalesowen Road, Netherton.
Vehicles were bought and sold days later with thousands of pounds added to the price and up to 144,000-miles removed from the odometer reading between December 2009 and February 2011, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
Sohal had claimed she was ‘too busy studying law’ to be involved but jurors unanimously found her guilty after spending just under an hour and a half deliberating at the end of a four day trial yesterday afternoon.
The jury of nine women and three men returned guilt verdicts on two charges of conspiracy to defraud.
Judge Mark Eades asked the jury to deliver a verdict of not guilty on a third charge of converting criminal property after prosecutors offered no evidence.
Inderjit Singh Sohal and Jatinder Sandher along with two others, Sundeep and Pardeep Shinh – have already admitted their involvement in the racket.
The court previously heard police officers seized £10,000 in cash in a raid on Karmjit Sohal’s family home in Willenhall from inside a safe in the garage which also contained paperwork.
However during interview with trading standards officials she claimed she withdrew the cash over fears it could be stolen from her account if she lost her debit card .
TheKeeleUniversitygraduate had also denied knowledge of some transactions on her debit card, including a sum of £2,071 paid at an auction in Wednesbury for a W-reg Mercedes C220.
She claimed she had left her debit card ‘lying around’ her home as she was a ‘trusting person’ and did not realise it had been used in deals.
Forged MoTs and bogus service books were produced to match the false mileage, revealed prosecutor Mr Mark Jackson
The judge ordered a pre-sentence report to be compiled on Karmjit Sohal, of Sherlock Close, Willenhall.
She will reappear at Wolverhampton Crown Court with her four co-conspirators for sentence on October 28.
It’s believed Manitoba Public Insurance was defrauded of more than $800,000. Global News/File
A man considered the mastermind of the largest defrauding of Manitoba Public Insurance in history is going to jail.
Quincy Adurogboye, 33, of Winnipeg, pleaded guilty and was convicted of eight counts of fraud in what police called Project Rollback in 2009.
Wednesday, a judge sentenced him to four years behind bars and ordered him to pay back $150,000 to MPI, only a portion of what he fraudulently received from the corporation.
About 40 people were arrested and charged for their involvement in an elaborate scheme to defraud the insurance company by rolling back the odometer readings of recently purchased vehicles, staging collisions in Winnipeg and then reporting the vehicles as stolen.
It’s believed the scheme cost MPI more than $800,000.
“This crime is extraordinary,” said Justice Chris Martin.
Martin also sentenced Norm Beardy, 44, to an 18-month conditional sentence to be served in the community and 150 hours of community service. Beardy was ordered to pay back $8,000 to MPI, only 10 per cent of the amount he was involved in scamming.
by Melanie Hicken @melhickenAugust 1, 2013: 10:03 AM ET
Issues with auto sales and repairs once again topped the Consumer Federation of America’s annual list of consumer complaints.
Shady auto dealers, shoddy construction work and incessant debt collectors were once again among the most common targets of consumer gripes last year.
Towing disputes and feuds between landlords and tenants were the two fasting growing complaints, while mortgage assistance scams and door-to-door meat sales were new problems on the list, according to the Consumer Federation of America’s annual report. The list, released Wednesday, is the result of survey responses from 40 state and local consumer protection agencies in 20 states.
The complaints come as budget cuts and limited resources continue to squeeze the agencies, which fielded more than 350,000 complaints collectively last year, according to the report.
“Whether it’s an offer on the Internet or meat being sold door-to-door out of the back of a truck, consumers need to be careful in today’s marketplace,” Amber Capoun, president of the North American Consumer Protection Investigators which helped conduct the survey, said in a statement.
Issues with auto sales once again topped the list. Car shoppers reported misleading advertising for new and used cars, faulty repairs, leasing and towing disputes and getting suckered into buying lemons.
One California consumer noticed mechanical problems with her used car within a week of purchasing it, while an elderly Florida woman paid more than $1,000 for repairs that left her car undriveable, according to the report.
2. Home Improvement/Construction
Home owners griped of shoddy work, as well as failure to start or finish the work altogether.
A New Jersey awning company cited by the report would disappear after signing a contract and pocketing a $1,300 deposit.
Borrowers complained of billing and fee disputes, mortgage-related fraud, predatory lending, illegal or abusive debt-collection tactics and questionable credit repair services.
Mortgage-related complaints were common in many states: In Florida, consumers were tricked out of thousands of dollars by loan modification and foreclosure scams.
4. Utilities
Consumers singled out service and billing disputes with a variety of providers, including phone, cable, satellite, Internet, electric and gas companies.
The report cited a Wisconsin investigation, which found 6,500 unauthorized cell phone charges for third-party services users never signed up for.
Shoppers listed a range of complaints, including false or deceptive advertising, defective merchandise and problems with rebates, coupons and gift cards.
In Pennsylvania, hundreds of customers sought help after a dry cleaner closed with their belongings locked inside, according to the report.
6. Services
Consumers said they had fallen prey to misrepresentations and subpar and unlicensed work from a variety of service providers, like moving and transportation companies.
Connecticut scammers, for instance, targeted immigrants with phony legal services.
7. Home Solicitations
Problems with home solicitations moved up the list in 2012. Consumers griped about misrepresentations from door-to-door salespeople, telemarketers and mail solicitations, as well as violations of the “do not call” registry.
The report noted that door-to-door meat sellers in Maryland pushed consumers with high-pressure tactics and did not have proper licenses to sell food products.
8. Landlord/Tenant
When complaining about their landlords, renters reported unhealthy or unsafe housing conditions, deposit and rent disputes, illegal eviction tactics and a failure to make repairs.
The report noted a Los Angeles tenant who said her landlord was unresponsive to complaints about unworking toilets and pest issues.
Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller have been hacking into products for a long time. But they don’t steal stuff or mess with people; instead, their purpose is to pressure companies into making their products more secure.
This week, they scored big. Their research on hacking cars has captured the attention of millions and has been featured in Forbes and on the Today show.
Miller and Valasek are not the first guys to hack a car, but they demonstrated like few have before just how dangerous these kinds of attacks could be.
“That’s really where Charlie and I came in,” says Valasek, a security researcher at IOActive. “We really wanted to see, once someone was inside your car network, to what extent could you control the automobile?”
The pair got a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and bought two modern, connected cars: a Toyota Prius and a Ford Escape. Then they tapped into the network of little built-in computers that run on virtually every car sold today.
Car makers began embedding electronic control units, or ECUs, in cars more than 30 years ago. These simple little computers were developed during the first gas crisis. Initially, they were used as tiny computerized carburetors.
“Engineers figured out that computers were much better at figuring out how to mix gas and air than a mechanical device,” Valasek says. “They were much more efficient and you could get better gas mileage.”
But soon these little computers were being used for a lot of things, like cruise control or anti-lock brakes.
“Now we’re to the point where cars parallel park themselves,” Valasek says. “And that’s not just magic. There’s computers in the car that have sensors and actuators.”
Remote Control Havoc
All these little devices talk to each other on an open network. They listen in to every message that’s sent, and they don’t verify where a specific command is coming from. Miller says all of this makes cars easy to attack.
Any sensor attached to the processor on the network is vulnerable. So after Miller and Valasek learned the code that controlled the ECUs on the two cars they were testing, they were able to cause all kind of havoc.
They were able to jerk the wheel at high speeds in the Prius. They could cause the car to accelerate or brake. They could beep the horn or set off the crash preparation system and jerk the seatbelts back.
In the Ford Escape, if the driver was moving slowly, they could turn the wheel or even kill the brake. In fact, once Miller forgot that the hack was running on his Ford Escape and he drove it into his garage.
“Luckily, these weren’t our cars,” Valasek says.
But Miller did crush his lawnmower.
“My lawnmower — it was destroyed, utterly,” Miller says. “The lawnmower was perhaps the first cyber-attack-in-a-car victim.”
Car Companies Not Worried
Miller and Valasek tried to share their findings with Toyota and Ford before they went public. Both companies say while they are taking the research seriously, they’re still convinced their cars are safe. They say if someone has to wire a computer into your car to get an attack to work, you are going to notice.
“I’ve actually been very disappointed with the reaction from these companies,” says Don Bailey, a security researcher who has hacked into cars remotely via the cell phone network.
Bailey says Miller and Valasek have proven that “once you are through that initial barrier, you can and will be able to do almost anything you want to.”
It’s unlikely, however, that malicious hackers will take advantage of these attacks any time soon. All cars don’t all use one operating system and they don’t all speak one single language. So before a hacker can take control, he or she has to learn the specific code that runs the systems for that specific car.
That’s tough, and it takes time. But Valasek says it’s not impossible.
By going public with their research, Valesek hopes car companies will be forced to fix these problem before anyone — aside from a lawnmower — gets hurt.
A Mishawaka car dealer is arrested and accused of rolling back the odometers.
Adame Scott, 28, was arrested on Wednesday and charged Thursday with two counts of odometer fraud. His mechanic told police he was ordered to roll back the odometers.
A day after the search warrant was executed Scott’s Auto Sales was closed. Police seized several odometers, five cars and paperwork with customer names to hopefully contact other victims.
It’s been in business for about a year. Police started getting several complaints about the business.
Lieutant Regis Thimons from the St. Joseph County Police says, “The biggest concern we have as police officers is the danger that it puts the public in, when they are driving a vehicle that has only been road worthy for 80 thousand miles when it is actually been on the road 252 thousand, that’s a big discrepancy.”
One woman says she bought a Chevy Impala in April. She says she paid 45-hundred dollars for the Impala that had 80 thousand miles. After doing some digging she found out it was actually scrapped for 400 hundred dollars with 250 some thousand miles.
Police don’t know how many cars were sold with the incorrect odometer readings so they are asking people to call them. You can call St. Joseph County Police at (574) 217 – 5150.
Buying a used car is already risky business, and this story of fraud in New York will have you double checking your paperwork.
Matin Jarmuz used Craigslist.com to sell his 1992 Toyota Camry. According to Jarmuz’s Craigslist post, at 21-years-old and 200,000 miles the Camry still had a smooth, quite ride. He sold the car quickly to Chris Sciolino for $900 cash. Jarmuz thought he had made a good deal, until other Craigslist users alerted him that his old Camry was up for sale again by the same man he just sold it to, only this time listed at $1,800 and with 79,000 miles.
How do you protect yourself? First, always check the paperwork. Titles are required by law to list the mileage of a vehicle every time it changes hands, although cars older then 10 years don’t have this requirement. For older cars, checking with a cars history with sites like CarFax.com can revel a car’s true mileage. Also check the wear on the pedals and ignition of the car, if it seems more worn down then the miles suggest you could be looking at fraud.
When WIVB 4 called Sciolino playing the part of an interested buyer they found another savvy shopper had already called him on the mileage discrepancy. When the reporter then asked to see the title the car was suddenly not for sale.
NHSTA provides a hotline where consumers can seek legal help if they feel they may have been a victim of odometer fraud.
