WEST NEW YORK–On Monday, the office of the Attorney General in New Jersey announced that two West New York men were indicted on Aug. 27 for their alleged roles in an identity theft and insurance fraud scam.
According to a release on the office’s website, Remny Gomez, 23, has been charged with second-degree theft of identity, as well as trafficking in personal identifying information, insurance fraud, attempted theft by deception, receiving stolen property, and two counts of theft by deception (all in the third degree).
William Collado, 27, also of West New York, was charged with third-degree insurance fraud.
The indictment alleges that Gomez used fraudulent credit and debit cards to make more than $4,300 worth of purchases between Feb. 16 and March 13, 2008 and that Gomez was in possession of a stolen BMW 745, valued in excess of $30,000, which he fraudulently insured knowing that it had been stolen.
Gomez was arrested on March 13, 2008 while allegedly attempting to use a $100 gift card to purchase an $850 computer in a Walmart in Secaucus. During the transaction, a check-out clerk noticed that the account numbers on the check-out slip did not match the numbers on the gift card. Further investigation revealed that Gomez allegedly possessed a number of credit cards that had been re-encoded.
It is alleged that Collado assisted Gomez in using the personal identifying information of another person in an electronic application for the purpose of obtaining automobile insurance in New Jersey for a 1998 Lexus GS300, including the other person’s driver’s license number, date of birth and address, without the knowledge or authorization of the victim.
The insurance fraud was allegedly committed by Gomez and Collado working together to insure vehicles in the name of an innocent victim. The alleged fraud was discovered when the victim received insurance documents in the mail concerning a vehicle she had never purchased or insured and reported the incident to the police.
The second-degree crimes carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison and a criminal fine of $150,000, while crimes of the third degree carry a maximum sentence of five years in state prison and a criminal fine of $15,000.