A motorcycle gang leader who led others to steal Jeep Wranglers in a high-tech way in Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, and elsewhere has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison.
\nJimmy Josue Martinez, 33, who was also known as “Motas,” was transferred to a federal prison in Victorville as of July 1 after being sentenced June 24 in U.S. District Court in San Diego.
\nJudge John Houston ordered him to pay $246,396 in restitution to four insurance companies that was listed as victims of approximately 150 stolen Jeep Wranglers in San Diego County. The cars were taken to Mexico to be sold or stripped for parts.\u00a0
\nMartinez was a member of the Hooligan motorcycle gang that was based in Tijuana and he led a theft crew that would employ scouts to target a specific Jeep. His crew would get the vehicle identification number from the dashboard or elsewhere and make a duplicate transponder key, according to court records.
\nThe theft crew would surreptitiously obtain computer codes from the Chrysler’s database and they would later return to the Jeep and take it. The thieves would disable the car alarms and steal the car with a duplicate key, often in the middle of the night.
\nMartinez pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit transportation of stolen vehicles in foreign commerce. At the time of his guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer said “the joy ride is over for Mr. Martinez.”
\nAssistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Galvin urged the 37-month term, while Martinez’s attorney, Julie Blair, recommended 24 months. He could have received a maximum five-year term in prison.
\nThere were nine other Hooligan gang members charged with Martinez, and most have been sentenced. The most recent sentencing was Sebastian Ponce who got 15 months after pleading guilty to stealing a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle. Ponce was ordered to pay $18,553 in restitution, according to court records.
\nThe restitution order for Martinez specifies he pay $91,157 to Geico Insurance, $71,347 to USAA, $50,630 to Progressive, and $33,262 to Allstate.
\nApproximately 50 percent of money placed on Martinez’s books in prison will be diverted to the insurance companies, according to his sentencing documents. He will also be subject to paying the insurance companies back even after he is released from prison. He will be banned from associating with other Hooligan members even after his release.
\n“This case is a reminder that our proximity to the international border provides increased opportunity for transnational organized crime,” said Suzanne Turner, the FBI Acting Special Agent in charge.
\n\u201cEl grupo criminal Hooligans se aprovech\u00f3 de esta proximidad al robar veh\u00edculos por valor de millones de d\u00f3lares de San Deigns para ocultar, cortar, vender y sacar provecho de esos veh\u00edculos en M\u00e9xico\u201d, dijo Turner.
\nAs an example of the value of the cars taken, an excerpt from the indictment lists two 2007 Jeep Wranglers worth $22,225 and $21,709, which were stolen in Pacific Beach in January, and September 2014. A 2008 Wrangler worth $33,685 was stolen in Ocean Beach in June 2014, the indictment says.
\nLos registros judiciales enumeran a Mario \u201cCifre\u201d Echeverr\u00eda-Ibarra, Ad\u00e1n Esteban S\u00e1nchez Aguirre y Narcisco Zamora Ba\u00f1uelos como fugitivos luego de que se emitieran \u00f3rdenes de arresto el 24 de mayo de 2017.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A motorcycle gang leader who led others to steal Jeep Wranglers in a high-tech way in Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, and elsewhere has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison. Jimmy Josue Martinez, 33, who was also known as “Motas,” was transferred to a federal prison in Victorville as of July 1 after being […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":264786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Gang leader gets 37 months for Jeep Wrangler thefts","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}