Stolen IDs Lead to Insurance Fraud Charges for Two New Jersey Men

Two New Jersey men have been charged with insurance fraud and other charges for using stolen credit cards and licenses obtain auto insurance, as well as commit other identity theft-related crimes, prosecutors said.

The two men — 23-year-old Remny Gomez and 27-year-old William Collado, both of West New York — were indicted by a New Jersey grand jury last week.

The New Jersey Attorney General office said Gomez was arrested in 2008 while allegedly attempting to use a $100 gift card to purchase an $850 computer in a Walmart in Secaucus. 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” — credit cards where another account number has been stolen and then used to overwrite the information on the magnetic strip on the back of the card using a computer and some additional equipment.

Among the allegations by the state, prosecutors say Gomez stole a New Jersey driver’s license number and used it to obtain car insurance in Pennsylvania for a stolen 2003 BMW 745 and in New Jersey for a 1998 Lexus GS300.

The state also alleges that William Collado helped Gomez in using the personal identifying information of another in an electronic application for insurance for the Lexus.

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.

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Source: New Jersey Attorney General’s Office