EXEMPLARY PERFORMANCE AWARD
Sean Cook
Investigator, California Department of Motor Vehicles
Investigator Sean Cook has been a peace officer with the state of California for nearly 12 years. He is currently assigned to the Department of Motor Vehicles Investigations Division in Stockton.
In 2008, Investigator Cook started receiving complaints of dealer misconduct. The complaints alleged that three car dealers located in the Modesto area of Stanislaus County were committing the following types of fraud against consumers and financial institutions, as well as various warranty companies:
- Failure to pay off trade-ins
- Double-financing the same vehicle
- Obtaining financing for vehicles that were never transferred
- Obtaining business loans secured by property they did not own
- Falsifying loan documents/credit applications
- Purchasing vehicles from auctions using nonsufficient funds
- Obtaining lines of credit while failing to pay them off
- Selling extended warranties without providing payment to the warranty companies.
In the first four months of an intensive investigation, the three dealerships were forced to close down. Two of the main suspects fled to Arizona while the third fled to Mexico, leaving behind over 250 victims who needed assistance in reconstructing their car purchases in order to complete the transfer of ownership into their names, along with their lien holders.
In the ensuing 18 months, Investigator Cook, along with the collaborative assistance of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, FBI, California Department of Corporations and other local law enforcement agencies, was instrumental in serving numerous search warrants in both Northern and Southern California. The warrants developed leads which ultimately resulted in the arrests of the three dealers, along with numerous associates. Arrest warrants were served in Stanislaus County, as well as Maricopa County, Arizona. Investigator Cook was instrumental in extraditing the dealers back to Stanislaus County, where they currently face nearly 70 counts of fraud totaling nearly $3 million.
As a result of the arrests, there has been a significant reduction in the amount of fraud perpetrated by other dealers in the area.
