Two owners of a Moline, Ill.-based car dealership — 4th Avenue Auto Sales — have been indicted along with four co-conspirators on straw-buying fraud and odometer tampering, according to a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.
The owners, Bradley Shane McCorkle and Isaac Bell, would recruit straw buyers to purchase vehicles on behalf of the dealership. The defendants recruited as many as 14 straw buyers to purchase about 335 used vehicles, the indictment noted. The fraudsters would then roll back odometers on the purchased vehicles by as much as 130,000 miles, falsify vehicle titles and list the cars for sale on Craigslist. Ten vehicles with tampered odometers were listed in the indictment, and sales were attempted across California, Illinois, Iowa and Virginia.
The defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, six counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of odometer fraud, and one count of securities fraud involving a motor vehicle title.
