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Miami, Florida — Six Hispanics have been arrested in connection with a ‘crash and cash‘ car insurance fraud scheme, which also led authorities to a chop shop dealing in illegal vehicles.
On November 3, 2024, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office received a tip from an insurance provider regarding a suspected staged crash. By February 2025, police arrested two participants involved in the crash, 53-year-old Mary Brioso and 35-year-old Enrique Brioso Cribes, who are a married couple.
On June 11, 2025, police linked the alleged scheme to two auto body repairmen and two medical therapists and arrested all four that same day.
According to reports, Cribes and Brioso planned to stage a crash using their vehicle, which had already been deliberately damaged by two brothers, 57-year-old Armando Baloy Mesa Lazaga and 61-year-old Elvis Manuel Mesa Lazaga.
After the staged incident, Cribes and Brioso took the vehicle to Armando Lazaga’s auto body shop for a repair estimate, where, according to CBS News Miami, the brothers inflicted additional damage to support the fraudulent claim.
Shortly after the crash, the Briosos submitted a medical claim exceeding $28,000 to their insurance provider, according to NBC South Florida.
The report states that the claim was largely prepared by two alleged co-conspirators, 40-year-old medical therapist Sergio Fernandez-Alfonso and 38-year-old Rolando Romero, the owner of the clinic.
In addition to the $28,000 medical claim, the Briosos also reported approximately $9,000 in property damage, allegedly caused by a collision with a deer. When their insurance provider grew suspicious of the claim, they forwarded the information to the MDSO, which ultimately led to the arrests of all six alleged Hispanic fraudsters.
Following the arrests of Romero, Fernandez-Alfonso, and the Lazaga brothers, police charged Armando Lazaga with operating a chop shop, possessing a counterfeit Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) or decal, and tampering with or removing a VIN plate.
According to the MDSO, the suspects face a range of charges including insurance fraud, racketeering, and filing false claims. As of this writing, a court date has not yet been scheduled.
Records from Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation, as listed on Vinelink, indicate that at least three of the suspects have been released from jail. The custody status of the Briosos and Elvis Lazaga remains unclear.
Despite the Hispanic names and non-White appearances of the alleged fraudsters, Romero, Fernandez-Alfonso and Armando Lazaga are all listed as non-Hispanic White males.
Widespread fraud runs rampant in non-White communities in the United States. More than 75% of individuals arrested for alleged ‘wire fraud,’ where race was identified, were recorded as non-White.
The Justice Report has documented several other instances of sophisticated fraud schemes perpetrated by non-White individuals across the United States.
In March of this year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Massachusetts Attorney General filed a joint complaint alleging that Regalcare and its consulting partner, Stern Therapy Consultants (STC), orchestrated a multimillion-dollar Medicare and Medicaid billing fraud scheme.
According to the complaint, both STC and Regalcare submitted inflated reimbursement claims for therapy services, billing for treatments that were either unnecessary or never provided.
The filing further claims that STC-employed medical staff at Regalcare resisted administering these “sometimes painful” procedures. In response, STC allegedly threatened these employees with termination and even posted a retaliatory job advertisement.
Specifically named as conspirators were the CEO and owner of Regalcare Eliyahu Mirlis—An Orthodox Jew—and Regalcare executive Hector Caraballo—who was of of Black-Hispanic descent.
In January of 2024, the US Attorney’s Office in Connecticut announced that they had arrested two Medicaid fraudsters; 39-year-old Ramon ‘Kristopher Rockefeller’ Apellaniz and his business partner, 38-year-old Suhail Aponte, both Hispanic.
According to law enforcement, Aponte and Apellaniz controlled Minds Cornerstone, LLC, which filed over $1.8 million in fraudulent Medicaid claims for autism services they were not qualified to perform. Additionally, Apellaniz allegedly conducted this illicit business with Aponte while in jail for a separate healthcare fraud arrest.
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