Fraud of the Month - January 2012
Soggy boat boondoggle flounders
Scott Tran’s commercial fishing boat was a floating insurance fortune, and the Cherry Hill man decided to cash in.
He plotted to sink the Alexander II on the high seas to scam a $400,000 insurance payout. But instead Tran is the one with a sinking feeling.
His klutzy crew couldn’t send the boat to its watery grave.
They also did such a lousy job of camouflaging the soaked scheme that they toppled like bowling pins when arrested. They pleaded guilty, face federal jail time, and will be saddled with felony records that follow them through life.
Tran hired Mike Anholt to captain the ship, hire the crew and pull off the scheme. The gang merrily motored Tran’s vessel 86 miles off the coast of Cape May, N.J., where it was supposed to meet its watery maker.
The boating bunglers tried to sink the boat. Sea water poured in, but the feisty Alexander II refused to plummet. It remained partly swamped.
Anholt and his cohorts sent a distress signal to the Coast Guard around 3:30 a.m. on an August 2009 morning. The crew then climbed into a life raft and abandoned ship. A Coast Guard helicopter soon swooped in and pulled them from the brine.
Lied that were on fishing trip
“Tran’s gang actually had doctored the log to create the appearance of a fishing trip. Except for a few obvious gaffes.”The half-sunk boat was towed to harbor, and Tran tried to collect his $400,000 haul from State National Insurance Company.
But the insurer denied his claims. Inspectors carefully looked over the boat to make sure it was on a legitimate fishing expedition, which the crew had claimed and the boat’s log appeared to confirm.
But Tran’s gang actually had doctored the log to create the appearance of a fishing trip. Except for a few obvious gaffes.
The log said they’d caught more than 50 fish weighing about 3,000 pounds. So why weren’t any fish in the boat’s hold?
The Alexander II also had little fuel, ice, food or other supplies for a lengthy boating trip. The bilge pumps were in fine working order. But strangely, everyone somehow ignored the bilge alarms and nobody activated the pumps when the boat started taking on water.
Tran was cornered and pleaded guilty. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison when sentenced. The entire crew also pleaded guilty except for Anholt, who died before going to trial. Tran’s right-hand man and chief helper Manh Nguyen also pleaded.
Lied that pirates attacked
Exact statistics on insurance cons involving boats aren’t kept, but Tran’s scheme calls to mind other boating boondoggles.
Beverly Hills lawyer Rex DeGeorge made a virtual career of scuttling motor yachts on the high seas for insurance money. He got away with several sinkings because the vessels went down in deep water.
His final gambit failed when he was caught drilling a hole in a $1.9-million yacht hull off the coast of Italy. DeGeorge claimed Russian pirates had boarded the boat and tried to sink it when they saw the coast guard cutter approaching. No one ever found the so-called pirates, but DeGeorge received 7 1/2 years in a California jail cell.
A Massachusetts man claimed someone stole his boat from his locked garage. Except that his boat was 24 feet long, and an astute investigator measured the garage and found it was 21 feet.
A Virginia man said his 19-foot runabout power worth about $16,000 was heisted. He later moved to Pennsylvania. But a tipster told his insurer the theft was fake. Investigators went to his home and found the boat in plain view in his front yard with a “For Sale” sign.
As these boaters discovered, their insurance cons were all wet.
