Massachusetts, Melrose man arrested by FBI faces fraud charges

OFF THE WIRE
BY: Jim Haddadin
Source: wickedlocal.com

Melrose — Federal agents arrested a man in Melrose last week who prosecutors say solicited the help of motorcycle gang members to transport his Harley Davidson motorcycle to Mexico, then collected thousands of dollars from his insurance company by reporting the vehicle had been stolen. And that wasn’t the first.

In a grand jury indictment that was unsealed last week, prosecutors claimed that Kevin “Charbo” Charbonier was part of an ongoing auto insurance scam in 2005 and 2006 that involved selling cars, trucks and motorcycles to a third party, and then reporting them stolen to collect insurance payouts.

Charbonier was arrested by FBI agents at a home on Burrell Road in Melrose on Friday, Sept. 3 at about 5:30 a.m. It is unknown whether Burrell lives at the address, although another occupant of the residence shares the same last name, according to a phone directory listing.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston say that Charbonier and co-defendant Richard “Rain” Elliott were duped by an undercover FBI officer who claimed to be a Texas businessman with the ability to traffic vehicles to Mexico. Prosecutors claim that Charbonier sold his 1998 Harley Davidson motorcycle to the undercover police officer, then reported the vehicle stolen and collected $11,379.50 from Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company.

Elliott collected $29,060 from Travelers Insurance of Massachusetts after he claimed he sold his 2004 Chevrolet Silverado to the undercover agent and falsely reported it stolen, according to the indictment.

Charbonier and Elliott were both arraigned in federal court this month on one charge each of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. In the indictment, prosecutors accuse the defendants of causing “false and fictitious claims and communications to be made, by mail and by wire, to the insurance companies.”

The transactions between Charbonier, Elliott and the undercover FBI took place five years ago in Taunton, Bridgewater, and surrounding areas. They were facilitated by Joseph “Joe Doggs” Noe, and Brian “Clothesline” Delavega, according to the indictment, which states that Noe and Delavega introduced the undercover agent to Charbonier and Elliott.

Massachusetts’ own Outlaws Motorcycle Club

Noe and Delavega were two of 15 members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club — an international motorcycle gang said to be the archrivals of Hell’s Angels — arrested in a widespread federal raid on the gang’s headquarters in Taunton on July 31, 2007. The raid followed a two-year undercover investigation into the gang’s criminal activities, which was dubbed “Operation Roadkill,” by the U.S. Department of Justice.

At the time, law enforcement officials characterized the Outlaws as a highly organized criminal group with 90 chapters worldwide. The three chapters or clubs in Massachusetts are in Brockton, Taunton and East Boston.

The FBI infiltrated the Taunton chapter in November 2005, when an undercover agent was accepted into the clubhouse and continued an association with the gang for more than a year.

The undercover FBI agent told Noe and other members of the Outlaws that he was a businessman from Texas who visited Massachusetts on a monthly basis. He convinced them that he owned a trucking company involved in smuggling drugs between Mexico and Canada. At one point, several members of the Outlaws served as private security guards for a shipment of 40 kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. The drugs were provided by the FBI and served as a decoy.

After the FBI raid, Delavega and Noe — leader of the group’s Taunton chapter — were charged with hijacking a 2003 Chevy Silverado pickup at gunpoint from two men in the parking lot of the Norton House of Pizza near the Sportsman’s Café on Rte. 123 in Norton in April 2006, and selling the stolen truck for $6,000 to an undercover agent.

There is no mention of the 2007 raid or Noe and Delavega’s affiliation with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club in the indictment against Charbonier released this week by the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Information in this report came from 2007 articles published in the Taunton Daily Gazette and The Norton Mirror, and were written, respectively, by Gerry Tuoti and Frank Mulligan. Both papers, like the Free Press, are Gatehouse Media publications.

Copyright 2010 Melrose Free Press. Some rights reserved