NEWHALL, Iowa (KCRG) – An Eastern Iowa car dealership’s future is in question as it is accused of a $12 million fraud scheme and may have much of its inventory seized.
Stellantis Financial Services made the allegations in a lawsuit filed this week against Sky Auto Mall, which has locations in Newhall and Center Point, and its owners, Igor, Yelena and Alex Tovstanovsky. Stellantis Financial is the lending arm of the automaker Stellantis, which makes several vehicle brands, including Chrysler, Jeep and Fiat.
According to the lawsuit, Stellantis had loaned Sky Auto Mall money to purchase vehicles for inventory. Stellantis claims the dealer then took out similar loans through other lenders, including Ford Motor Company, on the same vehicles and transferred the vehicles between its locations to hide the duplicate loans.
“…by doing so each lender would fund the purchase of these vehicles…
Cyber fraud uses technology as the primary weapon. It is highly scalable and can be conducted from anywhere in the world.
- Phishing/Smishing/Vishing: Using deceptive emails (phishing), text messages (smishing), or phone calls (vishing) to trick victims into clicking malicious links or revealing sensitive data.
- Business Email Compromise (BEC): A high-value scam where a criminal impersonates a CEO or high-level executive via a “spoofed” email address to trick a staff member into making an urgent, unauthorized wire transfer.