A man and woman are facing charges in connection with an alleged staged car crash in Miami-Dade that defrauded an insurance company out of tens of thousands of dollars, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Yumilka Melendez-Pagan, 44, and Vidal Rojas-Balbas, 51, were arrested Monday on charges of insurance fraud\/staged accident, Miami-Dade jail records showed.<\/p>\n
According to arrest reports, the staged accident happened Aug. 4, 2025, in the area of Northwest 6th Avenue and 131st Street.<\/p>\n
Melendez-Pagan told investigators another man arranged the crash to “make some extra money” and said they would be paid after they went to a clinic, the reports said.<\/p>\n
She said they arrived and got out of vehicle before a man got in and crashed into a tree while they were standing by, the reports said.<\/p>\n
The man got out and walked away and they called 911, the reports said.<\/p>\n
Authorities arrived and they gave information as though they’d been involved in a crash, the reports said.<\/p>\n
Rojas-Balbas said the other man paid him $1,000 for being involved in the crash, the report said.<\/p>\n
They were supposed to undergo therapy at a clinic but apparently never did, the reports said.<\/p>\n
Esurance was billed for therapy for the trio, with $17,870 billed for Melendez-Pagan and $10,865 paid out and $7,605 billed for Rojas-Balbas but $0 paid out, the reports said.<\/p>\n
Another $27,103.99 was billed for the other man, with $20,071.80 paid out, the reports said.<\/p>\n
The reports didn’t say whether that man was arrested or facing charges.<\/p>\n
Melendez-Pagan and Rojas-Balbas were booked into jail and appeared before a judge who set their bonds at $5,000 each, although Rojas-Balbas has an immigration hold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man and woman are facing charges in connection with an alleged staged car crash in Miami-Dade that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,373],"class_list":["post-239497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-dade-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}