$62,000 Check to Porsche Dealer Bounced : Police Probing Trio Linked to Car Scams

Law enforcement officials are looking for a family they say has used counterfeit and phony checks to steal expensive cars from dealers in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere.

The thieves--an Asian man about 60 and two others who may be his son and daughter--have been linked to four such thefts in the past year, and police say they have been seen in many other expensive cars, leading to speculation that there may have been more thefts.

The older man calls himself Jesus Bonpua and the others go by the names Robert Lee and Judy Lee, although they have used the aliases Robert Ching and Judy Chan, police said. They usually visit car lots several times, getting to know the dealers and building a friendly relationship before trying to pass the checks, investigators say.

“They are pretty smooth operators,” said Los Angeles Police Detective Charlene Reming, who has been investigating the trio in the Valley since Sept. 24, when they allegedly stole a Scirocco from La Torre Volkswagen in Reseda.

In that theft, the woman made the down payment with a personal check for $10,000. It bounced.

Skipped Bail

UCLA police stopped Robert Lee Oct. 18 and discovered that he was driving the stolen Scirocco, Reming said. Lee used a bail bondsman to post his $6,000 bail and never returned to court, she said.

Investigators say the three have given dealers false addresses throughout Southern California. “Not even the bounty hunters can find them,” Reming said, referring to three private investigators hired by the bail bondsman to trace the trio.

Felony theft arrest warrants for the two younger suspects were issued Dec. 12, Reming said. Glendale police, meanwhile, are looking for Bonpua in connection with a theft there a few weeks ago.

In that case, a man who said he was a doctor gave Glendale Porsche/Audi dealership what looked like a bank cashier’s check for $62,037 in exchange for a 1986 Porsche 911 turbo with all the trimmings. After the man drove off in the sleek black sports car, the dealer discovered that the check was phony.

‘Built Up Rapport’

The man first visited the dealership, at 1620 S. Brand Blvd., in June, general manager Matthew S. Tachdjian said, and returned twice driving different late-model Porsches.

“He built up rapport, we felt comfortable with him,” Tachdjian said.

Then he showed up at noon on July 26 with a couple he identified as his son and the son’s girlfriend to pay for a car. It was a Saturday, and the manager phoned Tachdjian at home to tell him he had a cashier’s check for the car.

“I was told it was a cashier’s check. I approved it over the phone,” Tachdjian said.

But it was actually a business check drawn on the non-existent account of a non-existent warehouse firm supposedly located in San Francisco, Officer Herb Cantwell of the Glendale Police Department said.

The amount was machine-printed, just as it normally is on a bank cashier’s check. All the information given to the dealership, including the buyer’s name and address, was false, Cantwell said.

He said the car probably will be stripped for parts or its identification number will be switched so it can be registered or sold.

Tachdjian, who says his employee erred by not examining the check closely to see if it was indeed a cashier’s check, said the scam has taught him “not to deliver a car unless it’s cash.”

The trio is also suspected in the theft of a BMW and a Mercedes from American Autos, a car leasing company in Westminster, Reming said.