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INSURANCE COMMISSIONER DAVE JONES ANNOUNCES SENTENCING OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY BUSINESS OWNER FOR INSURANCE FRAUD

Cellular store owner submitted 2,000 fraudulent claims; ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones today announced that Andy Jungsik Kim, 37, of Studio City, was sentenced on February 7 for Grand Theft, multiple counts of Identity Theft and for possession of a forged driver’s license. Kim, in custody since August of last year, pled guilty and was sentenced to three years and four months in state prison, along with the restitution order.

According to investigators, in October 2009, Asurion Insurance Services, a nationwide insurance company specializing in insuring cell phones, reported to the Fraud Division what they suspected was cell phone insurance fraud activity involving Skyland Cellular, a cell phone retailer with two cell phone stores in Los Angeles. Asurion suspected that as of September 2009 the ongoing alleged fraudulent insurance claims activity was responsible for more than 2,000 fraudulent claims with an estimated loss of more than $700,000.

Investigators from CDI’s Fraud Division found that Skyland Cellular owner Andy Jungsik Kim, over a period of time starting in or about March 2008, had submitted multiple false and fraudulent claims to Asurion in order to obtain replacement cell phones for resale, at a substantially lower cost. Kim accomplished this by using information from cell phone accounts of customers of his two cell phone stores. Kim made claims to Asurion in the name of unsuspecting customers who purchased cell phones in his stores. He provided Asurion with addresses for the shipping of the replacement cell phones that were private mailboxes he had rented using a fake California identification card in another name. Asurion unwittingly shipped replacement cell phones pursuant to the fraudulent claims to the addresses that Kim controlled. The investigation uncovered more than one million dollars in losses to Asurion from fraudulent claims.

Co-defendant Chong Han Kim, who worked in one of the Skyland Cellular stores, and co-defendants Yong Koo Kim, Chong Sok Son and Jun Choi conspired with Andy Kim and participated in the fraud. Four of the defendants were arrested in August 2011. Jun Choi remains at large and is a fugitive.

Asurion Insurance Services assisted in the investigation of the case. The case was prosecuted by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s High Technology Crimes Division.

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