Fugitive Mass. brothers are arrested in the Caribbean

The arrest of a fugitive from Massachusetts in the Dominican Republic represents a major break in an auto insurance fraud case that touched off a massive investigation into insurance fraud scams in Lawrence and across Massachusetts, investigators said yesterday.

Police said Dominican authorities had apprehended Jacinto Maldonado, 24, who fled in September 2003 after he allegedly staged a car accident that wound up killing his grandmother, Altagracia Arias, 64.

Maldonado's arrest could lead to the arrest of others involved in that case, said Kimberly Giardina, lead investigator for the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts. Maldonado may have information that could help authorities implicate others involved in the scam, including a lawyer, she said.

The Arias case brought unprecedented focus to a problem that had seemed intractable, said Senator Susan C. Tucker, an Andover Democrat who has helped pass legislation increasing penalties for participants in auto insurance scams.

''It was this tragic story, a grandmother dying in a staged accident, that put a human face and a spotlight on these scams," she said.

The case sparked a massive investigation in Lawrence by a special insurance fraud task force of police, prosecutors, and insurance investigators.

They uncovered a vast conspiracy that included lawyers, chiropractors, insurance agents, ''runners" -- who sell seats in cars for faked accidents -- and participants in faked accidents.

Since October 2003, 157 people have been charged in connection with insurance fraud cases in the Lawrence area, said Lawrence Police Chief John J. Romero. As a result, he said, annual insurance claim payouts in Lawrence have plummeted from $50 million to less than $20 million.

Giardina said that the insurance fraud task force in Lawrence is far from finishing its work.

''We still aren't even at the tip of the iceberg," she said. ''We're gaining on a lot of people."

Police say that the crash that killed Arias was a typical insurance fraud scam that went fatally wrong. Maldonado was driving the ''bullet car," a 1992 Acura Legend that was supposed to hit another car at an intersection in Lawrence, they said. Instead it hit a telephone pole, and Arias died.

Just hours before the accident, Romero said, Arias was still trying to sell seats in the car for $200 to elderly people at the Lawrence Senior Center, where she was a regular bingo player. Each of the eight participants in the staged crash was supposed to get $2,000 to $3,000, authorities have said.

Romero said others involved in the accident have been apprehended on insurance fraud-related charges, but Maldonado, who was charged with manslaughter, fled before police could arrest him.

His brother, Andres Maldonado, 21, who was wanted for murder in an unrelated August 2003 shooting, was also arrested in the Dominican Republic on Friday. Both brothers were featured on ''America's Most Wanted" last fall.

Stephen F. O'Connell, a spokesman for Essex District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett, said he expects the brothers to be arraigned in the Dominican Republic on charges of being fugitives from justice. If they waive extradition, they would be brought back to the United States by US marshals and arraigned in Lawrence District Court, O'Connell said, where Jacinto Maldonado would face insurance fraud-related charges in addition to the manslaughter charge.

Romero said Arias's death transformed the way investigators handled insurance fraud. Previously, he said, insurance fraud cases often were left to insurance companies and the attorney general's office.

''Local law enforcement wasn't in the mix," he said.

Giardina said seven other communities and regions have established insurance fraud task forces that include local, county, and state authorities. They are Boston, Chelsea, Brockton, Lynn, Lowell, Randolph, and Springfield/Holyoke.

Tucker said she is pushing legislation that would reward communities like Lawrence that invest in combating auto insurance fraud. Lawrence drivers' insurance premiums are still hundreds of dollars higher than in neighboring Andover, she said.

''We're trying to keep middle-class people in our cities and the high cost of insurance is one of the reasons people would move out," she said. ''People thought they were ripping off some rich insurance company, but they were really ripping off their neighbor."

Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.