It took me nearly four years but I finally was able to nail one of my targets from back when I started this blog. For those of you who aren't familiar with my story and how we got to where we are today, I'll fill you in. Years ago, I had no interest in blogging or literally anything related to politics or the goings on over at the state attorneys office or the local PD, that was until a con man named Alex Orriols conducted a fraudulent real estate closing through my wife's law office. At the time no one in my wife's office had any idea that the closing was bogus, about a year later, the man that had purchased the home in question claimed that his identity was stolen and used to obtain a fraudulent mortgage to purchase the home. With that revelation, the moron detective that was investigating the case, Jorge Baluja, and this asshat assistant state attorney, Bill Kostrzewski, bought the guys story hook, line and sinker and proceeded to arrest my wife along with the guy who sold the house in question. I couldn't understand how they went ahead and arrested my wife at the time despite obvious evidence that the man who claimed his identity was stolen was clearly lying and was involved in the fraud. Regardless, it took two years for my wife to get exonerated and for the state attorneys office to drop all the charges against her. Even though she was given an apology by the state attorney, it wasn't good enough for me. I decided that no matter what, I wasn't going to rest until I exacted my revenge on the criminals that put my family through the two years of living hell that we experienced. After four years or so, I finally nailed the man who recruited the straw buyer that was involved in my wife's case, Alex Orriols. I originally wrote about him here, where I outlined how he had lied to a detective from the Miami Dade Police Department about one of the straw buyer transactions that he was involved with. Despite the fact that I basically laid out his entire fraud in that post, I couldn't get a single person from the Miami Dade PD interested in reviewing the case, instead they just let the case sit dormant without lifting a finger.
With that said, for the last four years, I kept hounding every single law enforcement officer that I could, whether they were from ICE, FBI, the US Marshals service or whatever till I found someone that was interested in taking the case. Thanks to the hard work of the folks over at Homeland Security and a little help from a friend in the U.S. Marshals service, yesterday we got this...
News Releases JUNE 19, 2013 4 arrested, charged in $1.5 million bank fraud, money laundering scheme
MIAMI – Four individuals were arrested Tuesday and charged with various counts of bank fraud, money laundering and wire fraud. The charges resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation, the Florida Department of Insurance Fraud and the Miami-Dade Police Department. Eduardo Hernandez Jr., 32, of Miami, Alexander Orriols, 43, of Miami Beach, Jose Arias, 50, of Miami, and Milena Hernandez, 30, of Miami, were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to the indictment, the defendants engaged in a bank fraud scheme using straw buyers as loan applicants to obtain loans using false financial information and documentation. To execute the scheme, the defendants allegedly recruited and persuaded individuals to apply for boat loans from companies owned or controlled by the defendants. They would then submit the loan applications to financial institutions. The applications included false information regarding down payments and deposits made to the defendants’ companies. The defendants also allegedly falsified the straw buyers’ financial records, including IRS W-2 forms. They then submitted these false financial documents to financial institutions. Based on these false documents and misrepresentations, the financial institutions approved and issued loans to the straw buyers. The indictment also alleges that the defendants paid the straw buyers a portion of the loan proceeds as payment for their service and to cover some of the monthly payments on the loans in order to keep the fraud from being detected. As a result, the defendants diverted the loan proceeds for their personal use and used some of the money to further the fraud scheme. If convicted, the defendants face possible maximum statutory sentences of 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit bank fraud and substantive bank fraud; 20 years in prison for money laundering conspiracy, substantive money laundering and wire fraud; and 10 years in prison for substantive money laundering.
FUCK YES! Just to make sure that I wasn't imagining things, I went over to the federal bureau of prisons website to check whether or not Mr. Orriols was in custody...
NICE! I hate to gloat at another mans misfortune, but I hope that this mf rots in jail. Like the title of today's post says, patience and perseverance finally pays off. Despite not having written about the original cast of characters that were the genisis of this blog, I haven't forgotten about them and I wont till everyone of them is sitting behind bars contemplating how they got there, especially that fat fuck that fled to Panama after I outed him!
I been following this case since you put the 1st comment, i did my personal investigation, and i find out the owner of Ocean Waves is not Alex Orriols is own by guy by the name of Heriberto Leon AKA:PUPE & his Wife Celeste Valle, who has real bad reputation in North Miami where he owns 8 more business the are been investigating for fraud. I took the time to drive by Mr.Leon business, Ocean Waves and find out the Mr Leon got arrested and release for identity theft and having stolen property in his business and having stolen motors in his personal boat,
i talk to a employee and ask them for Alex Orriols and they tell me the he had left the company. honestly i think this guy Alex is a victim from the owner of the company, who is been using over 10 people to be registered owners in the corporation to avoid liability.Check public records & Sunbiz to see how many register owner this company had in the pass.
Honestly, just how much bullshit can you feed a detective before the detective figures out that somethings haywire? The man at the center of one of the mortgage fraud stories that we've discussed during the course of our blog, Bernardo Barrera, was involved in another identity theft case four months before the Oak Avenue mortgage fraud. Strange how Mr. Barrera had the misfortune to fall prey to not just one but two identity theft schemes in such a short period of time. I'm going to propose that the two identity thefts were somehow related, regardless of whether or not Mr. Barrera was involved in the crimes, somehow I get the feeling that there's more to these two cases that meets the eye and that if you look at the two cases together you'll get a strong sense that somethings awry.
Let's start by taking a good look at the police report Mr. Barrera filed for the identity theft case involving the purchase of a boat from Ocean Waves Powerboats that was financed through GE Money Bank...
OK, simple enough, for the purposes of today's discussion, let's pay particular attention to this excerpt, I've underlined the pertinent facts in red and as always, click on the document to enlarge it to full size...
In this excerpt Mr. Alex Orriols, the principal of Ocean Waves Powerboats, tells the detective investigating the case that:
"On November 1, 2007, an unknown male walked into the boat show located in the Miami Beach Convention Center to purchase a boat. After looking around at all the boats on display, the unknown subject walked up to the Ocean Waves Powerboats display and spoke with the manager Alex Orioles about purchasing a boat and filled out all the necessary paperwork for the boat."
We already talked about the first major flaw with this statement several months ago, THERE IS NO BOAT SHOW LOCATED IN THE MIAMI BEACH CONVENTION CENTER IN NOVEMBER! Let's not split hairs now, that's a minor detail. Moving on, according to the statement, Mr. Orriols and Mr. Barrera (or impostor) filled out all the necessary paperwork for the boat. Fair enough, guy finds a boat at an imaginary boat show and he fills out the necessary paperwork to purchase the boat. Next we're told that Mr. Orriols...
"...sent the paperwork to GE Money Bank for their review. In about a week GE Money Bank had approved the deal and sent the paperwork back to Mr. Orriols. On November 10, 2008, the unknown subject came to the office at Ocean Waves Power Boats LLC to sign the final papers and pick up the boat."
Ok, got it? Mr. Orriols met with Mr. Barrera (or impostor) at the imaginary boat show on November 1, 2007 then filled out the necessary paperwork for the purchase of the boat, he then sent the paperwork to GE Money Bank who returned it a week later (November 8, I presume) and on November 10, 2007 Mr. Barrera (or impostor) picked up the boat from Ocean Waves Powerboats place of business. Fair enough.
Bare with me now, I've come across some paperwork from this transaction that creates some serious issues with Mr. Orriols statement, pay particular attention to the parts outlined in red. Let's start with the manufacturers statement of origin for the boat in question.
Notice the date outlined in red? An MSO is the document that's used to transfer ownership for a new vehicle from the manufacturer to it's first owner, so why is the MSO for this boat dated November 1, 2007, the date Mr. Barrera (or impostor) first filled out the paperwork and loan application for the purchase of said vessel? Perhaps a mistake on the part of the boat manufacturer?
Now, let's take a gander at the MSO for the boats engines, again this document is transferring ownership of the boats engines from the manufacturer to the boats first owner...
Oh Crap, there's that date again, November 1, 2007. Why is the ownership of the vessels engines being transferred before the bank approved the loan for the acquisition of the boat? Somethings not adding up here, it gets worse though. Take a look at this application for title for the vessel in question...
Why is it dated November 1, 2007 as well? If the bank didn't approve the loan for the boat until November 8, 2007 and the boat wasn't picked up till November 10, 2007, wouldn't logic dictate that all these documents should be dated some time between the 8th and 10th of November? Also take note that on this application for "Certificate of Title" Ocean Waves Powerboats is recording a lien in favor of GE Money Bank, isn't that bizarre since the bank hadn't even approved the loan yet and more than likely wasn't even aware of the loan application on November 1, 2007? According to the police report the loan that was funding the purchase of this boat wasn't even approved until at least November 8, 2007, so why are these guys recording a lien with the state of Florida on November 1st?
Even more disturbing is "Dealers tax statement" that was filed for this boat...
If I'm reading this document correctly it suggests that the company that sold the boat to Mr. Barrera (or impostor) collected $5,964.61 in sales tax on November 1, 2007. Am I the only one that finds collecting sales tax on a sale that has not occurred yet a little strange?
Oh, what the hell. Maybe this transaction really happened at the imaginary boat show on November 1, 2007 and just for shits and grins, the principal of Ocean Waves Powerboats decided to transfer ownership of the boat to the buyer, record a lien in favor of the bank and collect the sales tax for the transaction before the loan to purchase the boat was even approved let alone funded. Anything is possible I guess, but then how do you explain the purchase order for the boat that would have been signed that day at the imaginary boat show? Pay attention to the dates outlined in red...
WHOOPSIE! Did you all catch that? The date on the purchase contract for the boat in question is October 19, 2007. HUH?! According to the police report and Mr. Orriols testimony, his first contact with Mr. Barrera (or impostor) was on November 1, 2007 so how the hell do you explain this purchase contract dated several weeks before they ever met?
Can it get worse? Of course it can! Let's take a look at this excerpt from Mr. Barrera's credit report that shows all the inquiries that were made by the different lending institutions at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008...
Notice that inquiry outlined in red? That inquiry was made by "GEMB" aka "GE Money Bank" on October 26, 2007 which means Mr. Orriols not only had all of Mr. Barrera's information and applied for financing for the boat well before November 1, 2007 when he allegedly met Mr. Barrera (or impostor) at the imaginary boat show, it also proves that he was somewhat less than truthful in his statement to the detective investigating this case of identity theft. Let's not forget Mr. Orriol's rap sheet which the Detective would have pulled before interviewing him, look at the charges the state pressed against him on one case alone...
For fcuks sake, how the hell did this detective go and question this guy regarding a crime involving bank fraud and identity theft without arresting him on the spot?! WTF?! What about all the conflicting dates he gave in his statement?! For christ's sakes, what the hell is wrong here? Can cops be this stupid? Whether or not Bernardo Barrera's identity was stolen or not for the commission of this crime, the guy the detective is interviewing who's at the center of this crime is not only lying through his teeth but has a history of bank fraud and identity theft. What exactly does it take to make this detective suspicious of this Orriols character?! What's worse, is here we are 3 years later, what do you think the status of this case according to the Miami Dade Police Department?
Did you really expect any different? Am I the only one that thinks the identity theft case involving the boat and the identity theft case involving the Oak Avenue home have anything to do with each other? At the very least, if I was investigating the Barrera mortgage fraud case, wouldn't this previous instance of Mr. Barrera getting his identity stolen be of importance to me? What if there was the slightest chance that the two cases were related? Of course, anyone with a modicum of common sense investigating the mortgage fraud case would want to comb over the first identity theft case with a fine tooth comb in search of leads right? Let's see what Detective Jorge Baluja, the lead detective in the Barrera mortgage fraud case tells us during his deposition regarding the first case where Mr. Barrera got his identity stolen...
That's it huh? He didn't "get into specifics about it." So this previous case of your victim getting his identity stolen wasn't important to the case that you were currently investigating where your victim also gets his identity stolen?
No $hit? Ok, at the very least, you noted this identity theft case that occurred just four months prior to the case you were investigating in your report Detective Baluja, correct?
Oh, crap. So the previous identity theft case wasn't even mentioned in the report that Detective Baluja wrote regarding the mortgage fraud case? Surely the Detective must have thought it a little strange that Mr. Barrera's identity was stolen twice within four months, couldn't the two cases have been related Detective Baluja? Wouldn't you want to know details about the first case, who knows the two cases may have something in common?
Two instances where the same "victim" gets his identity stolen for the commission of six figure frauds and this idiot didn't think he needed to look into both cases? Can anyone figure out how this guy became a detective?
Don't fret folks, we're working on another angle, there may be justice after all...
I read a story in the Miami Herald on October 7, 2008 regarding a mortgage fraud case that didn't make any sense to me, I did a little digging and what I found left me stunned. A tale of a task force head whose political ambitions have run amuck, a detective without a modicum of common sense, a reporter that prints anything that's put in front of him, the railroading of an attorney by this machine to further the ambitions of its head and the lengths that those involved will go to in order to salvage a case that should have never been. Please take the time to start from the oldest post first and enjoy...
