Men accused of falsifying thousands of vehicle inspections in NE Houston

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Three men are accused of conducting more than 2,500 unlawful vehicle inspections in northeast Houston.

Someone called the Harris County Precinct Four Constable's Office about the inspections at Houston Harbor Inspections in the 200 block of Harbor Street.

Undercover investigators monitored the shop for three days. At the end, we're told the trio did more than 100 inspections. Lt. Eddie Hazel says more than half were unlawful.

Rene Contreras, Gustavo Gonzalez Jr., and Ernesto Hernandez were all arrested and charged with Tampering with Government Records. Gonzalez pled guilty to a misdemeanor Tampering charge in 2010.

Lt. Eddie Hazel says they charged $80 for each unlawful inspection.

He tells us whenever they got a vehicle that wouldn't pass legall, they'd hook the emissions test machine up to a vehicle they knew would pass. They also allegedly skipped safety testing that comes with inspections.

"Nnot only in this case were they not doing proper emissions portions of the inspection. But they weren't conducting the safety portion of the inspection," he tells us.

Through the investigation, Lt. Hazel says they learned that the trio had performed more than 5,100 inspections in the last six months. He says more than half of those were unlawful.

He tells us there's no doubt the people getting the inspections knew what was going on.

Aijaz Almani, with Sticker Station in the Heights, says people expect "wink-wink" inspections all the time.

" Every day people come to us, they offer us extra money to do the inspections and we don't do it, and after 10-15 minutes they come back and curse us because they get these inspections done somewhere else giving them a little bit extra," Almani says.

The three inspectors are out on bond. We're told the shop has been closed for about a week.

Lieutenant Hazel says if you think your vehicle is going to fail the emissions test, you can try to get help from AirCheck Texas instead of looking for an illegal inspection.