Authorities arrested 12 Southern California residents on May 9 for their roles in an elaborate auto insurance fraud scheme that netted over $350,000. The scheme’s investigation was led by the Inland Empire Automobile Insurance Task Force, which revealed that the fraud ring consisted of 15 members. Those arrested face charges of insurance fraud, grand theft by trick, and false impersonation.
The investigation began in November 2022 when Rosa Isela Santistevan, a 55-year-old employee of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) from Irvine, CA, was found to be unlawfully selling traffic collision reports. Santistevan allegedly sold thousands of reports containing personal information of collision victims to the fraud ring’s leader, Andre Angelo Reyes, 36, of Corona, CA.
Reyes then provided the reports to Esmeralda Parga, 26, of Pomona, CA, who contacted collision victims pretending to be from their insurance company. Parga arranged for the vehicles to be towed to a repair shop, CA Collision, owned by Anthony Gomez, 35, of Jurupa Valley, CA. The ring would then demand cash payments from insurance companies for the release of the vehicles.
Authorities uncovered the ring’s involvement in orchestrating staged collisions, including a recorded crash where a BMW sedan was intentionally crashed into a Polaris Slingshot. The defendants then falsely claimed these incidents as separate freeway accidents.
In addition to Santistevan, Reyes, Parga, and Gomez, others arrested include Ezequiel Baltazar Orozco, Antonio Terrazas Perez Jr., Erika Garcia, Antonio Ramirez Perez, Israel Avila Sandoval, Ricardo Parga Jr., Luis Alberto Ramirez Jr., Robert Arzac, Brian Anthony Lopez, Emily Marie Boatman, and Steven Anthony Alfaro.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office will prosecute the case, and the task force has already seized over 3,500 CHP traffic collision report face pages.