HIALEAH, Fla. – The second of four people accused in a Hialeah auto insurance fraud scheme has turned himself in to police, according to an arrest report.
Yander Sanchez, 26, accused of being involved in at least one staged crash, surrendered to Hialeah police Wednesday afternoon with his attorney’s guidance, the report states.
Police already arrested Marlon Aldecoa, 22, of northwest Miami-Dade on Monday.
Two other suspects, Dalin De La Torre, 21, and Yalema Gonzalez, 47, remained at large at the time of Sanchez’s arrest, according to the arrest report.
Like Aldecoa, Sanchez faced charges of organized scheme to defraud, staging an accident and filing fraudulent insurance claims.
According to a police report, police were first made aware of the scheme on Sept. 22, when an insurance investigator shared his suspicions about a July 7 crash in Hialeah where Aldecoa claimed to be injured.
Sanchez, Aldecoa’s passenger, also claimed to be injured, collecting more than $16,000 in medical claims in July and August, police said.
The report states that Aldecoa had filed a claim for an identical crash on Sept. 30, 2021.
An insurance investigator told officers that repair claims in the sum of $632.37 had been paid to Aldecoa.
Police said during the July 7 “crash,” body camera footage showed purportedly-fresh rear bumper damage on Aldecoa’s car.
But, according to police, footage from mobile license plate readers revealed that Aldecoa had been driving around the city with the same rear bumper damage since Sept. 30, 2021.
Police said the four defrauded insurance companies to the tune of $53,000 during the scheme.
According to police, Gonzalez has allegedly been involved in seven car crashes dating back to 2007, all of which involved insurance claims. At least one, in 2015, was determined to have been staged and an insurance company wouldn’t pay for a Feb. 2021 crash either.
Police wrote that Aldecoa “partially admitted to not repairing his vehicle before (the July) accident and then claimed more damage was sustained.”
This was “not true based on pictures and evidence gathered,” the report states.
Police took Sanchez, who did not speak to officers, to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where he was being held on a $25,000 bond.
He bonded out Thursday morning.
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Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.