The LA Times has been tracking this story, which I too been reading. I now think that a single car traffic accident in Malibu a few days ago has blown the lid off a huge scam ripping off the US tax payers.
The SGVTA Contraversy
This is one part of a series of posts about The San Gabriel Valley Transit AuthorityIt started out a week and a half ago as simply an unusual traffic accident. A rare Ferrari, worth almost a million dollars, crashed into a light pole along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and was totalled. It was reported that the Ferrari was speeding, doing 120 mph, and lost control. No one was injured. You think that would be the end of story. Some idiot with more money than brains in Malibu wrecks his million dollar car. That it when things get weird.
The only person the police found was a 44 year old Swedish millionaire, Stefan Eriksson, with a cut lip. Eriksson lives in the super-rich LA suburb of Bel-Air. He made his money with video games, specifically racing games. Eriksson claims that he was just the passenger. He claims that the driver was some German guy who he only knew as "Dietrich". After the accident "Dietrich" ran off up into the hills of Malibu and never found, despite a 3 hour search by police.
Needless to say, the police are not buying it. Eriksson blew a .09 blood-alcohol level, which is fine if he was a passenger. It would be a DUI of he was driving. So, now we have a name and face for the idiot with more money than brains. And this idiot is trying to avoid a DUI by making up some story about a fake driver. Interesting.
It gets weirder.
It turns out the police can't tell who owns the Ferrari. It was imported from Europe and was not even legal to drive in California. In addition, the police found at Mercedes SLR in Eriksson's home that is listed as being stolen, by Mr Eriksson, in London. A Scottish bank contacted the LA Sheriff's department claiming that they own the Ferrari (and were probably wondering where it was). Also, Mr. Eriksson has a felony conviction back in Sweden where he served prison time for counterfeiting. He recently resigned as a top executive of a failed game company called Gizmondo.
So... now we have a convicted felon, dot.com millionaire, and apparent fraudster, who plays fast and loose. The guy has balls. Despite everything, he still manages to somehow live the high life… fast exotic cars, a mansion in Bel-Air, multi-million dollar business deals, world travel. Wow!
It gets even weirder...
The story takes a strange twist with the involvement of a tiny public transport agency that gives rides to paraplegics in the San Gabriel Valley. The San Gabriel Valley is a cluster of small bedroom communities north east of Los Angeles. Pasadena, home of JPL, CalTech, and the Rose Bowl, is the best known city in the valley.
It turns out that shortly after the crash, two men showed up at the accident site and identified themselves to the police "homeland security" officers from a small San Gabriel Valley transit authority. Stefan Eriksson told investigators that he himself was ‘Deputy Commissioner’ of the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority police department's antiterrorism unit.
Huh? The tiny little SGVTA has its own police department? And that department even has it own anti-terrorism unit? All of this was news to the cities and the law-enforcement departments in the San Gabriel Valley. The SGVTA web site claims that their police department has a chief, detectives, marked police cruisers and an "antiterrorism" division. It also claims that they hired a new police chief, one Philip J. Sugar, who has years of experience with the LAPD and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. They say “Chief Sugar takes over at a time when mass transit is faced with perhaps its greatest challenges ever - - the post 911 era…”.
Gee. A simple check of the SGVTA own web site shows that it is nothing but a tiny private non-profit company contracted by local cities to provide transportation services to their disabled citizens. They have some vans that drive people around. It also seems strange that their web site seems to be obsessed with terrorism security levels. Something ain’t right.
The real police can’t seem to find the two "homeland security" officers that showed up in Malibu. It also seems strange that a private company claims to have their own police and anti-terror taskforce. Or how does a Swedish citizen with felony convictions become ‘Deputy Commissioner’ of a law enforcement anti-terrorism unit in California?
I can’t wait for the police and the LA Times to get to the bottom of this story!
I think the whole thing is a scam designed to fleece the America taxpayers out of millions of dollars. They set up a phoney “transit authority”. They then set up a phoney police and security department. They then apply for federal funds to equip that department with the security equipment, staff, and resources needed to meet the new standards that the real Dept of Homeland Security has issued for public transportation to meet when the official threat level reaches high levels. The TSA is giving out $15 million grants to bus companies for security. That is a tempting target, no?
6 comments:
Ahah and now the website for the "Transit Authority" is gone!
Ahah and now the website for the "Transit Authority" is gone!
They changed the website from
http://sgvta.gov/
to
http://sgvta.org/
The newly hired police chief, one Philip J. Sugar, years of experience with the LAPD is that of an absentee Reserve Officer, whom the LAPD threatened to relive because he never showed up for duty as required.
Sugar was a Reserve Specialist because of his tenure with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. He never had any field experience nor influence the formation of Department policy. I personally know him and his crediatials are less than truthful. Hit the LAPD with a Public Records Act Request and find out for yourselves!!!!
Another Swede, Carl Freer, is arrested after purchasing guns with a SGVTA Police Department badge. This is the second criminal caught using one of these badges to break the law. I think it’s high time that they publish the names of everyone they gave badges to. We may recognize the names of other criminals.
http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_117003409.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/c...s-pe-california
Yo Maiwandi Arrested!
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fe...1,4526629.story
Raids Target Transit Authority
Founder of the San Gabriel Valley agency in the spotlight since the Ferrari crash in Malibu is arrested. Guns, badges and cars are seized.
By Richard Winton and David Pierson, Times Staff Writers
May 10, 2006
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies seized guns, badges and police cars Tuesday and arrested the founder of a small San Gabriel Valley transit agency at the center of an investigation spawned by the February crash of a rare Ferrari in Malibu.
Deputies investigating the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority searched its headquarters in Arcadia, as well as a Monrovia body shop and homes in Bradbury and Whittier owned by board members.
The action comes three months after Swedish businessman Bo Stefan Eriksson totaled a rare Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway, telling deputies who responded that he was a deputy commissioner of the agency's police "anti-terrorism unit."
A few minutes later, two men arrived at the scene, identified themselves to deputies as "homeland security" officials and demanded to speak with Eriksson.
The former European video game executive was charged last month with embezzlement, grand theft auto, possession of a firearm and being under the influence of alcohol when he crashed the Ferrari. A one-time business associate was arrested for allegedly using a badge issued by the transit agency to illegally purchase a handgun.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Tuesday that detectives and prosecutors are trying to figure out why the men were connected to an obscure private company that provided rides to disabled people in Monrovia and Sierra Madre.
"This investigation is entirely focused like a laser beam on the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority Police Department and whether laws have been violated," Whitmore said. "Detectives are seeking to determine what the badges were used for and what is the extent of the agency."
More than 25 deputies began the raids Tuesday about 7 a.m. One of the homes searched — a large two-story Spanish-style estate in Bradbury — belonged to agency founder Yosuf Maiwandi.
He was arrested on suspicion of perjury for allegedly signing a document in which he misrepresented his position, Whitmore said.
Authorities have long been perplexed about why the tiny transit authority, which has five buses, needed its own police department. Maiwandi said in the past that the department had six sworn volunteer officers.
Eriksson and other businessmen joined the agency as advisors to help with a wireless camera system for the buses, Maiwandi told The Times in a March interview. The advisors were made deputy police commissioners and received identification cards and badges.
At Maiwandi's home, officials found a white, unmarked Ford Crown Victoria complete with radio equipment, computer mobile digital terminal, official government license plate, flashing front and rear lights and siren.
In Monrovia at Homer's Auto Service, which was the original home of the transit agency, three sheriff's officials arrived about 10:30 a.m. and questioned Maiwandi in the driveway. The investigators split up to search the premises. Maiwandi was taken into custody a short time later.
In total Tuesday, authorities seized hundreds of pages of documents as well as five firearms, several police jackets and more than 20 badges.
Whitmore acknowledged that the Sheriff's Department is still sorting out how all the pieces of the investigation fit together.
When Eriksson was arrested last month at his Bel-Air home, authorities found an official transit police badge there.
He was ordered last week to stand trial on seven felony counts of embezzlement, grand theft auto and possession of a firearm and on two misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence. He has pleaded not guilty.
Authorities accuse his one-time business associate, Carl Freer, of pretending to be a police officer by flashing a transit authority police badge and signing a statement saying he was a police officer to purchase a handgun. As a foreign national, he is not allowed to purchase handguns. He was arrested but has not been charged.
Maiwandi said in the March interview that he created a police department solely to protect the agency's bus riders and to have the authority to run background checks on drivers.
State law allows private transit agencies to form their own transit police, though officials said they are fairly rare.
Maiwandi told The Times he met Eriksson through Ashley Posner, a civil attorney for Eriksson and Freer who until recently was chairman of the agency.
Posner said he was not contacted by officials Tuesday. But he said this was not the first time detectives had sought records from the agency.
"I know [the] Sheriff's [Department] sent someone over to look at the records," Posner said. "Nothing is hidden. It wasn't too long ago."
Asked if he knew there were weapons at the auto shop, he said: "God, no. I hate weapons. I wouldn't think any of them would be doing something improper, illegal or wrong."
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