VIRGINIA GARDENS, Fla. – State investigators made a fourth arrest Sunday in connection with what they described as a “fraudulent insurance school” based out of Virginia Gardens where prospective insurance agents would pay to have someone else take state licensing examinations on their behalf.
Authorities with the Florida Department of Financial Services Bureau of Insurance Fraud arrested Jaroslav Verner, 32, of Alpharetta, Georgia, at Miami International Airport. He’s facing 18 felony charges.
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He joins father-son pair Rainier Miguel Salas, 59, and Rainier Alexander Salas, 27, both of Miami, and Karla Lit Peralta, 26, of Miami Gardens, in being implicated in the case. DFS investigators arrested the trio in late June, with Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis calling the suspects’ conduct “reprehensible.”
Prosecutors later dropped Peralta’s charges, court records show. An entry in the elder Salas’ case file references a “cooperating co-defendant,” though it wasn’t clear who that was referring to. In response to an inquiry, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said the office was unable to comment on the case.
The case centers around D&R Academy, which was run out of an office building at 6405 NW 36th St., near the airport.
Authorities said “820 exams were subverted” in the scheme, in which “subjects would pay approximately $400 to $2,000 for the license they were attempting to acquire via someone who would take the test for them.”
According to an arrest report, Verner, a Colombian national who also has two known addresses in that country, ran the illicit business with the elder Salas.
“Material evidence discovered on Salas’s cellphone via search warrant revealed that after Salas negotiated with the licensees, he would give Verner their biographical and online training center account information,” an arrest report states “Verner would then complete these mandatory hours and test for the subjects, obtain their ‘certificates of completion’ via multiple Florida state authorized training facilities...and send these certificates back to Salas, who would then use them to take the state insurance licensing exam fraudulently.”
Verner would get $50 to $400 per person for doing this, authorities said.
“Had the state of Florida known that Verner and Salas had taken the mandated preliminary hours and test for them, these individuals would not have been entitled to a Florida insurance license,” the report states.
Verner is facing individual counts of conspiring to racketeer, organized scheme to defraud and communications fraud.
He’s also facing five counts each of acting as an insurance agent without a license, unlawful use of a communications device and representing or aiding an unauthorized insurer.
Miami-Dade jail records show that Verner was being held on a $40,000 bond as of Monday afternoon.
The cases against the Salases continue in Miami-Dade court, with hearings set for Dec. 18, online records show.