GEICO Gecko Gets Fleeced by Ghost Lexus Insurance Scam
Florida scam ring swept up in sting over dozens of false claims concerning Lexus, other luxury makes.
Gordon Gekko once stated that “Greed—for a lack of a better word—is good,” a mantra which worked for him on Wall Street right up until he winds up in prison for the better part of the next few decades, while also inspiring a few too many traders to take up his cause.
If only this group of Floridians had learned the same life lesson as Gekko would decades later. The Miami Herald reports a group of 14 co-conspirators led by two men had scammed the GEICO Gecko out of over $530,000 between July 2016 and February 2017.
Led by ringleaders Sepp Lewis Tevini and Estevenson “Skull” Dorval, the group reported 10 accidents involving a Lexus GS 350 (out of 45 total claims involving high-end luxury and exotic cars) to GEICO within the aforementioned time frame. Tevini’s and Dorval’s body shops (which didn’t exist) would submit the claims to the insurer, which were signed-off by two adjusters “who prosecutors say got cash kickbacks for helping defraud” their own employer.
According to Miami-Dade County state attorney Katherin Fernandez Rundle, the rest of the group would make calls to GEICO claiming their car was involved in an accident. Once the checks were written, the group would pool the money together and divvy up the cash. The GS 350 fake claims cost the insurer $16,000 of the $530,000 stolen.
The entire group now faces charges of grand theft, insurance fraud and racketeering, and “a variety of additional criminal charges,” per Rundle. A handful of arrests were made thus far, including Teveni, Dorval, and the two GEICO adjusters.
