Law enforcement tells 13 Investigates it arrested 50 people Wednesday morning as part of a 108-count indictment related to wire fraud and conspiracy. Three more suspects, 44-year-old Tawana Jones of Houston, 60-year-old Pamela Yoder of Detroit, and 60-year-old Amir Khan of Pakistan, have warrants out for their arrest.
Officials said 11 of the people charged in the sting were people who had been charged with crimes but obtained bonds based on falsified documents. One them is a man accused of killing his wife, and then placing her body in a freezer. Another suspect is a man accused of killing a 17-year-old in a road rage incident after an Astros game.
Law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the investigation told 13 Investigates the first-of-its-kind investigation began two years ago when the Harris County Sheriff's Office's Crime Analysis Intelligence Division started looking into ways to combat violent offenders.
Officials said the sheriff's office analyzed jail calls for a group of violent offenders and noticed irregularities and patterns within those calls that alerted them to a specific individual.
After obtaining search warrants and subpoenas, HCSO realized the investigation was much bigger and began working with other agencies, including the FBI and the Houston Police Department.
Officials tell 13 Investigates they identified more than 100 people likely involved in the bail bond fraud scheme, but focused their attention on about a dozen offenders with the highest bail amounts as well as their co-signers and the company AABLE Bonds, which is suspected to be in on the alleged scheme.
A bond is the monetary amount someone who is accused of a crime must pay in order to get out of jail while their case is pending.
"An integral part of the criminal justice system is the bail bond, as old as the system itself, a device that allows defendants temporary release while awaiting trial by guaranteeing future court appearances," said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani. "Honesty in the underwriting of those bail bonds is essential to ensuring compliance and protecting the community. However, this indictment alleges employees of AABLE Bonds and many others conspired to violate that trust. Today's arrests and charges are the culmination of a multi-year, multi-agency and multi-jurisdictional effort to help protect the integrity of the bail bond system in Harris County."
RELATED: FBI leads operation with Anti-Gang Task Force at downtown Houston bail bond office
AABLE Bonds employees, Mary Brown, 29, and Oscar Wattell, 34, are accused of recruiting co-signers who allegedly falsified financial information saying they worked at certain companies or made a certain income in order to obtain the bond.
AABLE Bonds CEO, 58-year-old Sheba Muharib, of Missouri City, is charged with allegedly affecting persons engaged in the business of insurance.
The U.S. Attorney's office said she allegedly knew her employee, Wattell, "had a criminal felony conviction involving dishonesty while engaging in the business of insurance."
As part of the scheme, officials said once an individual was arrested and in the Harris County Jail, that person would call a bail bond company that assessed if the inmate was someone they can trust.
If the bail bond company determined the inmate could be trusted, the company would then ask them if they have a co-signer, according to officials. If the inmate did not have a co-signer, the bonding company would provide them with one.
If the inmate did have a co-signer, officials said often times their cosigner didn't have a job so the bail bond company would provide false financial documents to the co-signer. The co-signer would then bring in fake check stubs, sign financial documents with false information and submit those documents to the insurance company that backs the surety bonds, according to officials.
The insurance company, thinking the financial documents were accurate, approved the bail bonds, even though the co-signers didn't actually have the proper income to back the surety bond. Officials said, once the bond was approved, that allowed the accused individual to get out Harris County Jail on a bond they fraudulently obtained.
As part of this two-year-long investigation, FBI agents partnered with Houston police officers, Harris County sheriff's deputies, U.S. Marshals Service deputies, and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to conduct the arrests at multiple locations. FBI tactical teams from New Orleans and San Antonio also assisted.