Three New Yorkers Arrested for Renting Cars With Fake IDs and Then Selling Them

Busted!

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Three Long Island, N.Y. men are accused of trying to pull off what they thought was the perfect crime over the course of the last year or so.

Jose Lopez, 29, Jason Gonzalez, 23, and Felix M. Sanchez, 29, were arrested last week and accused of renting cars from Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Airports in recent months using fake IDs and then selling them quickly for a fraction of their value. The three men allegedly targeted Hertz and Avis rental spots inside of the airports and used the fake IDs, which they created themselves using equipment purchased off eBay, to get rental car employees to lend them cars. They paid for them using fake credit cards. And then, they turned around and sold those cars for way, way, way less than they were worth. In one case, they allegedly sold a $41,000 Cadillac for just $2,100.

However, police in Suffolk County got wind of what the men were doing earlier this year and started an investigation. And they put together a strong case against all three of them—plus several other alleged accomplices—and started rounding up some of the cars that they had sold as evidence. So far, ten cars have been recovered. But they also believe that the trio may have shipped several other cars overseas before police caught on to their crime.

You can check out the mugshots of the three alleged criminals in the thumbs gallery above. Can you believe that they tried to pull this off?

RELATED: 25 Craziest Car-Related Crimes of 2013 (So Far)

RELATED: 10 Signs You're About to Buy a Stolen Car

[via New York Daily News]

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