The Airways Auto Tag Agency boondoggle...

Earlier this week we discussed the arrest of a number of tellers from a local tag agency that I happened upon accidentally.  The thread that tied the tag agency story to one of our mortgage fraud stories was that they both shared the same detective from the Miami Dade Police Department, Detective Jorge Baluja.  Our assertion is that as long as Detective Baluja is involved, there's more than likely going to be some kind of misconduct or at the very least a totally botched investigation.


The first step in uncovering the good Detective's misdeeds was getting the arrest report for the tellers that were charged from the tag agency.  We took a trip down to the courthouse yesterday and came up with the following, as always click on the image to enlarge...

Essentially what the Detective Baluja is alleging is that the tellers at this auto tag agency would process your transaction, collect the fees and applicable taxes, give you your tag, title or registration, then they'd turn around after you left at some point and cancel the transaction and pocket the money that they had collected.  Considering the size of this tag agency, does it stand to reason that this kind of theft would be going on right under the owners noses without anyone finding out?  The arrest report alleges that there was nearly $20k missing over a period of four months, considering that this is a highly regulated business that works within a strict inventory of license plates and registration decals, how could $20,000 worth of these items go missing without anyone noticing?  Sounds like bullshit to me.


So what's the big deal here?  Why should any of us be interested in a simple case like this?  Be patient, on Monday we'll discuss who's behind this little tag agency as well as the strings that were pulled to get these tellers arrested...