Insurance Agent Faces Theft, Fraud Charges

State investigators have filed charges of grand theft and fraud against a Gardena insurance agent who allegedly used a fictitious company to sell bogus car insurance policies.

Larry Guerrero Wasan, 50, faces seven felony charges for collecting more than $5,000 from four customers who bought policies from a nonexistent company called AMCASCO, according to a complaint filed this week in South Bay Municipal Court. In a similar case filed earlier this year, Wasan pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Customers did not realize they had been duped until their claims were not paid, according to a report filed with the charges.

Investigator Xiomara De Oliver of the state Department of Insurance said that in the past two years at least 30 other customers bought insurance from the bogus company. Most of the policies were sold in the South Bay and were purchased by Filipinos, De Oliver said.

Previous Charges

The allegations are the second set of charges filed this year against Wasan, a Filipino. He was previously charged with forgery and fraud for selling one customer an AMCASCO policy. His trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 20 in Torrance Superior Court.

Wasan, owner of the Wasan Insurance Agency in Gardena, had his agent’s license revoked in February after the first criminal charges were filed.

Wasan could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Colleen Barry, said: “I’m confident that Mr. Wasan will be cleared of all the charges.” She declined to elaborate.

At a preliminary hearing last month on the earlier criminal charges, Wasan denied that he created AMCASCO. He said the company has representatives who visited him and promised him large commissions if he sold their insurance. Wasan said he never checked to see whether the company was licensed and said he began to have doubts only when the company failed to pay claims.

No Record of Firm

But state insurance officials said they have no record of such a company doing business in California, and authorities questioned Wasan’s explanation that AMCASCO is a separate entity that he does not control. They said the company’s return address is a post office box registered to Wasan.

Wasan said at his preliminary hearing that at the behest of AMCASCO officials he opened the post office box but never uses it.

The five victims named in the combined criminal complaints lost at least $9,000 in premiums and an undetermined amount in unpaid claims, De Oliver said.

Customers said they were unable to locate company representatives to file claims.

According to the investigative report, a Hawthorne woman said she received a letter that read: “Please do not attempt to call us because it is our policy not to accept any telephone calls in order to cut down overhead. We only do business by mail, which makes us the lowest premium company in the insurance industry.”

Customers told investigators that they were particularly dismayed because they trusted Wasan as a fellow Filipino. One woman said in a letter to investigators that she had “confidence and trust” in Wasan.

Bruce Such, a senior investigator with the state Department of Insurance, advised Wasan’s customers to contact the department to see if their policies are valid. Such said all AMCASCO policies are bogus and should be reported.