MERCED, Calif. – The owners of a local car dealership last week were charged in a federal indictment with allowing unqualified customers to buy cars financed through Valley First CU.
Fred Baset Jawad, Abdul Manny Muniem Mohamad Jawad, and Najeh Alex Kamal Jawad, who are owners of The Auto Store of Merced, were charged with using false applications to qualify borrowers for car loans from the credit union. The $325 million credit union financed about 60 auto sales and has lost approximately $540,000 from the scheme because many of the borrowers have defaulted on the vehicles.
The Jawads, who are brothers, owned and operated various used automobile dealerships in Stanislaus and Merced counties. The indictment alleges that the employees of the dealerships, including Modesto’s Own a Car and The Auto Store, falsified documents so customers who would not qualify for loans could get them.
The suspects allegedly entered fictitious information on loan applications, including the names of employers for whom the customers did not work. The men inflated the earning amounts of customers, in addition to creating fictitious earnings statements to reflect payments of wages by businesses that never employed the customers.
