Photo: Stock Image
Written By: Robert L. McCullough
February 4, 2023 – Ventura County, Ca. – As if the impact of the area’s recent torrential rains, mudslides, and flooded neighborhoods wasn’t enough for the motoring public to deal with, there are apparently those individuals among us who don’t hesitate to seize the opportunities presented by the hardships of others to indulge in their criminal instincts.
Those instincts reportedly led to the arrests of Santa Paula resident Pedro Soria Chavez and Fillmore resident Rodrigo Estrada on January 25th and 30th respectively. Both men were charged with Identity Theft, Conspiracy to Commit a Crime, and Receiving Stolen Property.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Detective Sergeant Will Hollowell, their arrests followed an investigation by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Santa Clara Valley Station Detectives into “fraudulent credit card activity in excess of $1800” reported by a woman who had been forced to abandon her car to the raging floodwaters of Balcom Canyon Road during the January 9th precipitous downpour.
The female victim was “forced to evacuate and abandon” her car in apparent haste as she left “several personal items including credit cards” behind. When she reported suspicious activity on her credit card which had been used for purchases at various businesses “in the surrounding area” to law enforcement, detectives accessed video records at those businesses to determine who had been using the purloined cards.
It didn’t take the cops long to identify and locate both Estrada and Chavez, each of whom were contacted at their residences, taken into custody, and transported to Ventura County Jail without incident. Both men remain in custody, with bail set at $50,000 each.
