{"id":44226,"date":"2024-04-15T21:30:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T01:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=44226"},"modified":"2024-04-15T21:30:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T01:30:54","slug":"state-blames-scam-artists-in-miami-dade-for-raising-insurance-premiums-statewide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/04\/15\/state-blames-scam-artists-in-miami-dade-for-raising-insurance-premiums-statewide\/","title":{"rendered":"State blames \u2018scam artists\u2019 in Miami-Dade for raising insurance premiums statewide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Florida investigators accuse 2 women and 2 men of defrauding Chicago-based insurance company<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"613\" height=\"332\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-50-23.png?resize=613%2C332&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-44227\" style=\"width:757px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-50-23.png?w=613&amp;ssl=1 613w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-50-23.png?resize=300%2C162&amp;ssl=1 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two men and two women allegedly put on a performance in Miami-Dade County that got the attention of a member of Florida\u2019s cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the suspects, Yuniesky Betancourt,&nbsp;is a former Major League Baseball player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myfloridacfo.com\/about\/meet-the-cfo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jimmy Patronis<\/a>, the state\u2019s chief financial officer, released a statement on Monday afternoon identifying Maura Perez, Nancy Mercedes Pena, Abel Vera, and Betancourt as \u201cscam artists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The four stand accused of what has become a common form of fraud: Staging a car crash and reporting it to police with the intent of defrauding an insurance company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cStaging accidents is incredibly dangerous and fraud like this costs every Floridian in the form of higher auto insurance premiums,\u201d Patronis said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Techies with the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myfloridacfo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Florida Department Of Financial Services<\/a>&nbsp;accused the group of staging a crash over a year ago to defraud Kemper, a Chicago-based insurance provider, and arrested them on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A fraud detective with the department\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myfloridacfo.com\/division\/difs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">division of investigative and forensic services<\/a>&nbsp;used&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhtsa.gov\/research-data\/event-data-recorder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a device<\/a>&nbsp;from one of the cars involved that records data before, during, and after a crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The detective with the division\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myfloridacfo.com\/division\/difs\/insurance-fraud\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Miami field office<\/a>&nbsp;accused Perez, 61; Pena, 50; Vera, 49; Betancourt, 42, of staging a crash on Dec. 6, 2022, to cause Kemper to pay more than $61,000, including nearly $23,000 for therapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The four \u2014 who did not have an arrest record in Miami-Dade \u2014 were facing felony charges of filing a false insurance fraud, an organized scheme to defraud, and third-degree grand theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vera and Betancourt were facing an additional felony charge of insurance fraud by staging an accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Corrections released Perez and Pena Friday on $7,500 bonds. Vera and Betancourt appeared in bond court on Friday night. On Saturday, Veta was released on a $9,000 bond and Betancourt on a $4,500 bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Lody Jean was set to preside over the four cases. The arraignment hearings were set for 9 a.m., on May 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Patronis had a message for anyone considering the scam: \u201d It doesn\u2019t matter how clever you think your scheme may be, if you commit fraud in Florida, you will be caught and brought to justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida investigators accuse 2 women and 2 men of defrauding Chicago-based insurance company Two men and two women allegedly put on a performance in Miami-Dade County that got the attention&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}