Burdened by debt and driving home from a night of gambling in West Virginia, Sergio Lopez launched a scheme that at the time must have seemed like a good idea.
He pulled his Volkswagen Jetta up to a random corner in Silver Spring, doused the interior with gasoline, set it on fire and walked away. He later made a claim to Nationwide Insurance. The car was missing, he said -- someone must have stolen it.
Add Lopez, who pleaded guilty in the case this year, to the band of Washington area residents who have torched their cars hoping for a quick insurance check. A Baltimore police officer did it. So did a Baltimore firefighter. A Prince William County resident burned a minivan for a friend.
Investigators estimate that hundreds of such crimes occurred in the Washington area in the past two years, although the exact number is unclear, and experts predict the number will increase because of the worsening economy. Many offenders have fallen behind on payments to car dealerships. This year, more people are behind on such loans than in nearly two decades.
"With what's just happened to the economy in the last week," said Donald Galbreath, a longtime fraud investigator for the insurance industry, "I see the trend will get worse."
Last year, Alexandria residents Yesenia Gomez and her husband, Jose Reyes, fell behind on payments on their 2007 Dodge Caravan. According to prosecutors, a middle school pal of Gomez's, Daybin Rodriguez, told Gomez that he'd burned a car in the past and could do so again. Gomez decreased the minivan policy's deductible, and a week later the vehicle was found torched in Mason Neck State Park in Lorton, prosecutors said. She and Rodriguez have since entered pleas to destruction of property charges. Charges against Reyes were dropped.
As Gomez described it to detectives, she had to choose "between the house and the car," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Marc Birnbaum said. Gomez's attorney, Kimberly Phillips, said Gomez and her husband had tried to return the minivan to the dealership and were desperate. "She just didn't know where to turn," Phillips said.
Data from a limited number of insurance companies show that "potential owner give-ups," most of which involve burned cars, increased from 511 in 2004 to 986 in 2007, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. The sample represents a "small percentage of the reality out there," said Frank Scafidi, a spokesman for the anti-fraud group.
Some investigators and law enforcement officials said they have seen no change in the numbers this year, but others said they suspect that the crime is already increasing. Duane Svites, a Maryland deputy chief state fire marshal, said "the market is right" for insurance fraud. "A lot of people trying to dig themselves out of a jam," he said.
Doesn't sound like a tragic victim of the Bush Depression.
"Volkswagen Jetta...set it on fire"
Doesn't sound like a tragic victim of the Bush-Halliburton gas price hikes - Jettas are quite fuel efficient and should actually command a premium on resale.
"Lopez", "Gomez", "Reyes", "Rodriguez"
Hmmm. Seems like a pattern. Writer must be racist.
#4
What the insurance companies don't say is often that trashing a car works. When it doesn't, it is because of poor planning.
I heard of a successful car ditch, in which the owner just parked his car in a bad part of town, and punctured one of his tires. He didn't expect his car to be completely destroyed, just destroyed *enough*. The locals obliged.
The next day, he took the bus out to where he had parked his car. It was trashed enough, so he walked several miles to a garage to arrange for a tow. Then he and the tow truck driver drove out to his car, and from there he called the police on his cell phone.
He did pay towing charges, but the insurance company paid the rest without question.
#5
It'a an old scam, Anonymoose. I heard about that back when I was at university in 1980. I was told it was a common activity in New York City when someone wanted a down payment for a new car.
Two Indonesian jobseekers have been tricked into getting their faces tattooed by a bogus official offering government jobs. Village chief Sawiyono - who was helping the men find jobs in Jakarta - claimed he had received a text message from a government official offering them work as intelligence officers but saying they would have to be inked first with a dragon tattoo, Antara state news agency said. So much for that "secret agent" position.
Sawiyono realised he had been tricked after checking with the subdistrict chief of the Bojonegoro district of East Java who told him there was no such requirement.
But by then it was too late and the men had already been tattooed, the report said. "I am fully responsible for the mistake and I will do my best to help the men remove their tattoos,'' Sawiyono said.
The men have complained to police and were seeking treatment at a local hospital. Yeah, and after that y'all can check yourself into the local kindergarten for a few weeks and learn some basic criical thinking skills. Until then, you'll need to war this hat in place of that tat.
#3
This is the same sputtering goebbelist who likes to refer to "the Bush administration's SO-CALLED war on terror." He's a classic retro-media activist, a throwback to the 80s in America, the latest stylistic triumph in the backward ass Euro-media world.
CHENNAI: In a rare instance of an existing quota being abrogated at the instance of the beneficiaries themselves, the Tamil Nadu government on Monday said it would withdraw the 3.5% exclusive reservation for Christians in education and employment after just one year of its operation. The move follows representations from the community that the separate quota was hurting Christians badly and that they were better off without it.
After meeting a delegation from the community at the secretariat, chief minister M Karunanidhi said an amendment would be brought in to revert to the old quota system in which Christians were bracketed with Other Backward Classes for the 30% of seats and jobs reserved for OBCs.
Fulfiling a pre-election pledge of the ruling DMK, the state government had in September 2007 promulgated an ordinance to provide exclusive quotas of 3.5% each for Christians and Muslims on the backward class list. The two quotas were introduced as compartments within the 30% OBC reservation.
"As Muslims continue to favour separate reservation, their exclusive quota will continue," Karunanidhi said.
Gee, wotta surprise ...
The Christian delegation, including Madras-Mylapore Archbishop A M Chinnappa, Kottar-Nagercoil Archbishop Peter Remigius, state minorities commission chairman Vincent Chinnadurai and Congress whip Peter Alphonse submitted a petition appealing for withdrawing the quota.
"You made history by introducing exclusive sub-quotas for Christians and Muslims and we are thankful for it. However, when the law came into force, we found that the Christian community got fewer opportunities in admission and employment than before. There is a widespread feeling that the exclusive quota is detrimental to the Christian people, not only in southern districts of Tamil Nadu, where there is a sizeable Christian population, but in the whole state," the delegation said.
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Francesca Bill was the definition of a 21st Century war bride. Her then-longtime boyfriend, Air National Guardsman Scott Bill, proposed after returning home from an oversees deployment in 2002. Plans for a 2004 wedding in Jamaica were scrapped when duty called for a third time. They wed just hours prior to his departure.
Scott joined the Guard in 1985; just two weeks out of high school. Over the years, his service in the 133rd Aerial Port Squadron took him to South America, Singapore and almost every country in Europe. Those trips each lasted just a few weeks. Then came Sept. 11. The deployments that followed were longer and more frequent. A transportation specialist, he helped move troops and supplies in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Over a two-year period, he was gone 18 months. The time away, he said, helps adjust your priorities. Family comes first above everything else.
His first deployment spurred him to finally propose to his love of five years. Hed spent 155 days serving in Diego Garcia, an island in the British Indian Ocean. His second tour followed late in 2002, in Kuwait City. It lasted only 45 days, but he was gone for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The holidays are the hardest, he said of being away from family. The day before leaving for his third deployment in 2003 to an undisclosed location in the Middle East, he decided he didnt want to risk waiting on their matrimony. Should he not survive, he wanted to ensure his love would be eligible for spousal financial benefits.
He called and said we have to do it right now, Francesca said. After stopping at a courthouse for the paperwork, they were married at Fort Snelling where he was based. She wore jeans and he was in his fatigues. Fellow guardsmen, some whom Francesca didnt even know, were last-minute bridesmaids and groomsmen. No family were present for the makeshift ceremony, but they did get to join the newlyweds for dinner. Thirty-six hours after they tied the knot, Scott was on his way to the Middle East.
They celebrated a dual wedding reception and welcome home party in the fall. Their originally-planned Jamaica wedding in January became a vow renewal and honeymoon. Francesca said she isnt disappointed about never getting to walk down the aisle in a fancy white dress. Shed always wanted a low-key wedding. And the unexpected unfolding of events did have a positive aspect: Instead of one celebration, they had several.
Scott retired from the Guard last year, after more than 22 years of service. Theyve settled into a more routine married life; both work for Boston Scientific she as a software quality engineer and he as a production supervisor. Home improvement projects are among their free-time activities. They recently finished re-landscaping their backyard. Amongst the new stone steps, fire pit and water lilies, are statues of four men standing at attention. A wood cross topped with Scotts old military helmet stands in front of the men, who represent each of the branches of the military.
Its a tribute to all the servicemen and women whove lost their lives, including the son of a senior master sergeant in Scotts squadron a Marine who was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq. Its my personal thank you to the individuals whove made the ultimate sacrifice, Scott said.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Burdened by debt and driving home from a night of gambling in West Virginia, Sergio Lopez launched a scheme that at the time must have seemed like a good idea. 
Two Indonesian jobseekers have been tricked into getting their faces tattooed by a bogus official offering government jobs. Village chief Sawiyono - who was helping the men find jobs in Jakarta - claimed he had received a text message from a government official offering them work as intelligence officers but saying they would have to be inked first with a dragon tattoo, Antara state news agency said. 
Francesca Bill was the definition of a 21st Century war bride. Her then-longtime boyfriend, Air National Guardsman Scott Bill, proposed after returning home from an oversees deployment in 2002. Plans for a 2004 wedding in Jamaica were scrapped when duty called for a third time. They wed just hours prior to his departure.
