Tampa Bay, Florida car dealer and wholesaler Mohamad Jihad Fakih, 27, is facing prison time after being found guilty in a scheme involving fraudulent loans, straw purchasers, bogus insurance claims and a stolen Rolls-Royce SUV.
Fakih was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and attempting to export a stolen vehicle, the Middle District of Florida U.S. Attorney’s Office (1) (USAO) reports.
He was also ordered to forfeit $378,886.96, “the proceeds of the conspiracy to commit wire fraud,” the USAO said in a release.
According to court documents, Fakih and a co-conspirator targeted auto financing companies, submitting fraudulent loan applications through his dealership website. He and his co-conspirators collaborated with pretend buyers (straw purchasers) who had no intention of purchasing a car.
Fakih would then collect the loan money and give a cut of the money to his co-conspirator and straw purchasers. He also used the fraudulently obtained loan money to purchase cars and try to export them.
In what the USAO describes as a “more straightforward theft,” Fakih used a straw purchaser to procure a stolen Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV worth $460,000, and then tried to export it overseas — but the shipping container was seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The USAO reports that Fakih also filed false insurance claims for vehicles, reporting them as stolen.
When it comes to auto loans and purchasing, fraud impacts both consumers and lenders.
Between March and September 2023, fraud-related losses for auto loans were 21 times greater than for losses due to credit card fraud, and six times as great as losses due to unsecured personal loan fraud, according to a TransUnion report (2).
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The risk-management platform Point Predictive estimated (3) that auto lenders faced a $9.2 billion risk of fraud in 2025 and that 69% of that would be down to borrowers and dealers misrepresenting information on loan applications — using false identities, or falsifying employment or financial information to qualify for a loan.
