AUSTIN (KXAN) — More than a year after KXAN began investigating fraudulent emissions inspections, and just months after we joined law enforcement as they went undercover for a sting at the Travis County Tax Office, authorities say the polluting problem is only getting worse.
“Every day in Travis County, the tax office receives fraudulent vehicle inspection reports,” said Sgt. Jose Escribano with the Travis County Constable Office Pct. 3 Clean Air Task Force, who said bogus inspections can be bought for around $100.
While vehicle safety inspections are going away next year, emissions tests in 17 counties, including Travis, are not. Testifying at the Travis County Commissioners Court on Thursday, Escribano said since the end of April it issued 25 arrest warrants and filed more than 150 criminal case reports. All are related to drivers attempting to use bogus vehicle inspection reports at Travis County Tax Offices to fraudulently register vehicles that shouldn’t be on the road.
The phony documents have helped “mask vehicles that are later used in the commission of crimes” in some cases, Escribano said.
The joint operation with the Travis County Tax Offices, nicknamed “Operation Red Picasso,” revealed the “daily flow” of fraudulent inspection reports have been “non-stop.” This type of fraud goes “largely unnoticed” around the state by tax offices, prosecutors and law enforcement, he added.
In Travis County, Escribano said his team trained tax office employees on how to spot fraudulent inspection reports. His team then follows up with those individuals to track how the bogus inspections were obtained.
“It is a misdemeanor but we need to go ahead and keep tabs of it,” said Escribano. “Because we all know that pollution, about 80% is caused by motor vehicles and now you’re letting all those motor vehicles hit the road and pollute and Ozone Action Days.”
Emissions tests can be bypassed at inspection stations without the car ever being present. The system can be cheated with a computer simulator, or when an inspector takes a bribe to analyze a different car that can pass. It’s called a “clean scan” and the fake results are registered as an official state record with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which makes the fraud difficult to detect. When a tax office teller, for instance, goes to verify that an inspection was done through TCEQ’s website, mytxcar.org, a clean scanned vehicle shows up as being legitimately inspected — even if it wasn’t.
KXAN reached out to TCEQ late Thursday. This story will be updated when we receive a response.
“People can register their car online. Travis County, on the average, online registrations are around 50,000 a month,” Escribano said. “We have absolutely no idea how many of those are clean scans and they’ve gone to the internet to get those because we have no way to do it. We’re getting the walk-ins.”
The constable’s office asked for funding, as part of the budget, to hire another investigator. Escribano mentioned KXAN’s reporting and said organized crime has moved from paper tags to emissions fraud.