Brooklyn men charged with orchestrating staged car crashes on Queens highways for insurance scams: DA
Two Brooklyn men are charged with staging a motor vehicle accident for orchestrating this notorious 2024 crash on the Belt Parkway in Rosedale after several scammers were caught on the victim’s dashcam, which was posted to TikTok, where it was viewed by millions worldwide.
Photo via TikTok
Two Brooklyn men are criminally charged with staging two car crashes on Queens highways and another one in East New York and then seeking insurance payouts for damages and purported injuries, according to the Queens District Attorney’s Office.
Jaime Huiracocha, 53, of Milford Street, and Victor Murillo, 34, of Bushwick Avenue, were arraigned Tuesday night in Queens Criminal Court on a criminal complaint charging them with staging a motor vehicle accident, reckless endangerment, conspiracy, insurance fraud, and other related crimes.
Huiracocha allegedly planned the collisions by luring participants with promises of cash payouts while Murillo drove the vehicles involved in the crashes.
“The prevalence of staged auto crimes has outraged New Yorkers,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “The allegations against these two defendants speaks to the core of why my Frauds Bureau dutifully investigates and prosecutes scammers who orchestrate dangerous accidents for the sole purpose of extracting money from innocent drivers.”
According to the investigation and charges, on Oct. 16, 2024, Huiracocha met with a group of individuals inside a medical clinic in East New York, Brooklyn, and allegedly gave them instructions on how to stage a car crash. The participants were told to send photos of the crash scene to a woman. They were also directed to go to a different medical clinic in Glendale after the crash. In exchange, the individuals were allegedly promised thousands of dollars.
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The participants then drove to a meeting location near the Belt Parkway. There were four vehicles present, including a silver Honda Civic and a Red Kia. Huiracocha allegedly told the participants what vehicles to occupy, according to the charges. The designated drivers had headphones to communicate with one another. Murillo was told to drive the silver Honda. The others in the Honda were given a black plastic bag/tarp and were instructed to cover the rear window after the collision so Murillo could switch seats with a passenger without being seen. All the vehicles entered the Belt Parkway and drove until the victim’s vehicle was identified. The choice was communicated via the headphones.
According to the investigation, at 11:11 a.m., Aphasia Natasha was driving northbound in the left lane of the Belt Parkway in Rosedale near the Nassau County border. Her vehicle was equipped with both a front and rear dashboard camera. At that time, the Honda Civic cut in front of Natasha’s vehicle and then came to a stop. The victim was forced to step on her brakes to avoid a collision. The Honda quickly backed into Natasha’s vehicle, damaging both her car and the Honda. The occupants of the Honda held up what appeared to be a plastic tarp in the rear window area of the car that partially obstructed the victim driver’s view inside the Honda. Then Murillo and another occupant of the Honda allegedly switched seats.
After the collision, four people exited the car, including a woman who got out of the driver’s side and a man who identified himself as Maikel Martinez and said the purported driver was his wife, according to the investigation. The footage surrounding the crash showed a red KIA Sport following Natasgaha’s car. After the crash, the Kia stopped in front of the Honda, and Murillo allegedly exited the Honda and entered the Kia, which drove away from the scene. The Allstate Insurance Company received a claim for damages to the Honda.
On Oct. 3, 2024, a group of individuals traveled in a blue Nissan Xterra to a location in East New York on the promise of getting paid. They then went to a second location, where Huiracocha allegedly provided directions on staging an accident. He then directed Murillo to drive the Xterra with the group onto the Nassau Expressway. At noon that day, Alexis Mendoza reported driving his tractor-trailer in the middle lane of the Nassau Expressway near Cross Bay Boulevard in Lindenwood. A Nissan Xterra, which was in the right lane, suddenly cut into the middle lane directly in front of his truck. He was unable to avoid hitting the Nissan. Murillo allegedly got out of the Xterra and entered another vehicle that had stopped in front of the Nissan. A woman claimed to Mendoza that she had been driving the Xterra. After the second car drove off, another car stopped at the scene, and Huiracocha got out and spoke to the truck driver. An adjustor for the Allstate Insurance Company received personal injury claims from occupants of the Xterra totaling more than $3,000.
On Aug. 24, 2024, at approximately 8 a.m., Alyssa Attanasio was driving westbound on the Belt Parkway near the Erskine Street exit in Brooklyn, within 500 yards of the Queens County line, according to the criminal complaint. A silver Honda Civic merged into the lane directly in front of her, and she collided with the car. She saw what appeared to be a black garbage bag covering the rear window of the Honda. Four men emerged from the Honda, and one of them matched the description of Murillo.
Dashcam footage from the victim’s car allegedly captured Murillo exiting the Honda and entering a red Kia that had stopped directly in front of it after the crash. An adjustor for the Allstate Insurance Company received personal injury claims from occupants of the Honda totaling more than $79,000. Defendant Maikel Martinez, 28, of 14th Avenue in Dyker Heights, was apprehended by law enforcement last November at JFK Airport after arriving back in Queens on a flight from Ecuador for his role in the first staged collision in Rosedale, and his case is pending, according to the DA’s office.
“We are grateful that the initial victim came forward with shocking dashcam video of one of these collisions,” Katz said. “After a long-term investigation with our partners at the NYPD and New York State Department of Financial Services, we identified two additional defendants who are now charged in this wide-ranging scheme.”
Queens Criminal Court Judge Glenda Hernandez granted them supervised release with passport surrender and ordered Huiracocha to return to court on Sept. 9 and Murillo on Sept. 4. If convicted on the top count, they each face five to 15 years in prison.
“Insurance fraud is a costly and pervasive drain on the state’s economy and raises costs for New Yorkers,” NYS Department of Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne Harris said. “I am proud of our collaboration with the NYPD and the Queens District Attorney to hold these criminals accountable for committing fraud and causing harm to innocent New Yorkers. DFS will continue to dedicate time and resources to combat financial fraud in New York in partnership with law enforcement and prosecutors.”
What we know about a Stamford man’s alleged scheme to steal $1M from DoorDash workers
By Pat Tomlinson,Staff WriterUpdated Nov 8, 2024 9:24 a.m.
UPDATE: David Smith was shot dead in New Rochelle on Jan. 6, two days before he was due in court in a $1 million DoorDash scheme, officials said.
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STAMFORD — In June 2023, a Stamford resident was arrested on accusations that he stole nearly $1 million as a part of a multiyear scheme in which, police say, he stole the paychecks of more than 700 DoorDash employees.
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More than a year later, the criminal case against 22-year-old David Smith — which has been on the docket at the state Superior Court 15 times so far
— is still pending.
What we know
Alleged domestic violence incident tipped off police to Doordash scam
On Jan. 5, 2023, Stamford police responded to a Prospect Street apartment around 1:20 p.m. on reports of a domestic violence incident involving a pregnant woman. Police wrote in an affidavit that Smith “was found to be the primary aggressor in the domestic incident.”
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While Smith faced several felony charges in connection with the alleged domestic assault, including a charge of strangulation, it was what police found during their investigation that spurred a much larger case against him.
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The woman told police that during their confrontation, Smith used a firearm, and she asked police “to remove the firearm from the apartment,” the affidavit said.
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When police arrived at the apartment to search for the firearm, they were met with a surprise, the affidavit said.
“While Officers were searching for the handgun in the apartment, they observed several stacks of large amounts of money in various locations,” Stamford police investigators Michael Stempien and Vanessa Lynn wrote in an affidavit. “While searching through a garbage can, officers found a large amount of payment cards with all different names, along with two California driver’s licenses, also containing different names.”
Police noted in the affidavit that the licenses “were determined to be forged.”
During the search, investigators also noted five cell phones and five safes, some of which “had more stacks of large amounts of cash in front of them,” the affidavit said.
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The findings left investigators suspicious, the affidavit said. As result, they seized all the payment cards, $52,410 in loose cash that had been lying around, the five safes, the five cell phones and one handgun that they located.
While transporting one of the safes, police said the latch opened and they found an additional $146,260 inside, the affidavit said.
Police later obtained warrants to search the safes and cell phones, which they said furthered their investigation.
Of the nearly $1 million dollars purportedly stolen by Smith, police said they managed to recover $733,240 during their search.
Police say phishing scheme used to scam DoorDash drivers
Stempien and Lynn wrote in the affidavit that, beginning in June 2020, Smith began running a sophisticated phishing scheme. He would call in a DoorDash order, usually in California, and have it sent to a nearby California address.
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At a certain point during the delivery, Smith would call the DoorDash driver “using an app to mimic the DoorDash support number,” according to the affidavit.
“Smith would then impersonate DoorDash support and notify the driver via phone and text that the order they were about to pick up was placed with a stolen card and that they’ve frozen their DoorDash account as result of this,” Stempien and Lynn wrote. “Smith would tell the driver they would need to be verified in order to resolve this issue.”
Smith would then send a verification code or text a link containing a phishing site that he had created that mimicked the DoorDash website, according to the affidavit.
“It was Smith’s goal to gain unauthorized access to the victim’s DoorDash account using either of these methods,” the affidavit said.
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Once Smith gained access to their accounts, he would change that employee’s banking information to one of the payment cards in his possession, according to the affidavit.
“He would then trigger a cash out to that card and thus steal the victim’s delivery money that had been pooled in their account. He would explain to the victim that due to the delivery issue they wouldn’t be getting their paycheck on time and it would be several days late,” Stempien and Lynn wrote. “This would cause the victims a delay in realizing their paychecks had been stolen and hinder their ability to recover their funds.”
Based on banking information obtained by police, they believe Smith may have “successfully repeated this scam” on more than 700 DoorDash drivers, the affidavit said. Stempien and Lynn wrote in the affidavit that they believe Smith stole “in excess of $950,000” while allegedly perpetrating the scheme.
What we don’t know
What will happen to stolen DoorDash money?
Since the search and seizure of the $733,240 found in Smith’s apartment, the money has been sitting in seized property at the Stamford Police Department. But where will that money wind up in the long run?
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State officials and local prosecutors say it’s too early in the case to say what will definitively happen with the large amount of cash.
Assistant State’s Attorney Margaret Moscati, who is overseeing the case, said she couldn’t delve into the specifics of the case, given its ongoing nature, though she noted that generally the fate of “any money seized as suspected profits of criminal activity” could be determined as a part of a future disposition in the case.
In some circumstances, Moscati said the funds could be given to the Connecticut Judicial Branch’s Office of Victim Services, where it would be placed into its Victim Compensation Program, which helps victims pay for certain crime expenses.
In other instances, the funds might go toward restitution paid to the victims involved in that particular case, according to Moscati. That could, however, prove challenging in this particular case given the number of alleged victims.
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Police believe over 700 “dashers” may have been affected by Smith’s alleged scheme. As a result, police said in the affidavit that it would “be impossible” to identify all the victims in the case.
One problem in particular that police encountered, according to the affidavit, is that some of the names of the victims were “generic” and DoorDash was “unable to differentiate which employee may have been victimized.”
In other instances, police said “dashers” with fake or stolen identities used in order to obtain work, which made further police outreach more difficult.
Deputy Chief State’s Attorney Kevin D. Lawlor also laid out another possible destination for the funds.
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“Typically, at the end of a case, the prosecutor will request the money seized in evidence be turned over to the rightful owner with a secondary order that funds where the rightful owner cannot be determined for some reason be forfeited to the General Fund,” Lawlor said.
Lawlor added that if Smith could prove the seized funds were rightfully his, then the money could ultimately be returned to him at the conclusion of his criminal case.
Prison sentence for DoorDash scam?
Smith appeared at the state Superior Court in Stamford for his 15th time on Monday. During the hearing, Smith rejected an offer from state prosecutors to resolve the case.
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Under the offer, Smith would have pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree larceny, third-degree identity theft, first-degree computer crime in connection with the alleged DoorDash scheme, and third-degree assault, first-degree threatening, second-degree strangulation and illegal possession of a high-capacity magazine in connection with the 2023 domestic incident.
In return for his pleas, Smith would have faced five years in prison and four years of probation. If he were to violate that probation, he could have faced up to an additional five years in prison.
While he rejected the state’s offer, Moscati noted that the 22-year-old has a pending offer from a Superior Court judge. Criminal defense attorney
Frank Riccio, who represents Smith, said his client is still contemplating the offer.
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Smith has until his next court date on Jan. 8 to decide whether or not to accept the judge’s offer.
If Smith rejects the judge’s offer, his case will likely be placed on the district’s trial list, where it will remain until it is scheduled to go forward with jury selection.
