Owners of Colorado tow truck companies indicted for $2.5 million in vehicle thefts – CBS News

Owners of Colorado tow truck companies indicted for $2.5 million in vehicle thefts  CBS News

Two men are now in Denver jail and charged with 187 criminal counts regarding their leadership roles in a ring of alleged thefts of vehicles, forging of ownership documents, and predatory towing practices.Oscar Salinas and Zaki Merhazi are accused of using friends and family members to accumulate approximately $2.5 million in total damages to private and commercial vehicle owners, dealerships, banks, insurance companies, and the State of Colorado. A Denver grand jury recently indicted Salinas, Merhazi, and 10 other people. Salinas and Merhazi was taken into custody last week and are Denver PD custody. The Denver District Attorney's Office announced the indictment Thursday. Those named in it include Moses Herrera (Salinas's brother), Kassandra Salinas (Oscar Salinas's sister), Gisselle Varela-Rocha (Oscar Salinas's girlfriend), Haley Gutierrez-Seib (Merhazi's girlfriend), along with Fernando Medina-Caraballo, Peter Swaab, Ronald Carreras, Albert Delgado, Ruben Martinez and Valentina Guzman.All the defendants are between 23 and 30 years of age.

A small number (six) of the criminals counts are the result of alleged towing incidents which occurred in March and April of this year. In those, Salinas, sometimes with his girlfriend, arrived at accident scenes with a tow truck and convinced drivers of damaged vehicles to allow him to haul the vehicles from the scene. Lesley Campos was one of those drivers. Campos told CBS Colorado she was approached