West Philadelphia<\/a> notary is accused of laundering dozens of stolen luxury cars, worth a combined total of more than $3.8 million, state authorities said this week.<\/p>\nAdam K. Richardson, 40, allegedly drew up fake titles for 65 vehicles between September 2023 and August 2024 through his company, Richardson Family Enterprises LLC, a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation vendor based in Wynnewood, law enforcement officials said.<\/p>\n
An informant told investigators that Richardson was known as the \u201c24-hour tag guy\u201d who could complete an ownership transfer with photographs of an identification card supplied through text message, according to charging documents.<\/p>\n
Cars were titled by Richardson Family Enterprises after being stolen in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and as far away as Texas, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Richardson, authorities added, would alter the car\u2019s vehicle identification number (VIN), fabricate out-of-state titles and submit fraudulent insurance information. The vehicles were often recorded as being sold for well below market value, officials said.<\/p>\n
Several people allegedly told state investigators that cars were transferred into their names without visiting Richardson\u2019s office, near City Avenue.<\/p>\n
One woman admitted she was paid to have a vehicle placed in her name, while another man\u2019s identity appears to have been stolen and used to facilitate the scheme, according to an affidavit of probable cause.<\/p>\n
Among the most expensive vehicles given \u201cclean\u201d titles were a 2021 Ferrari Portofino valued at $260,000, a 2023 Mercedes AMG 63S ($200,000) and a 2023 Mercedes-Benz G550 ($165,000), the affidavit says. Authorities reported that 37 of the 65 cars have been recovered.<\/p>\n
Some buyers knew the cars were stolen, while others were unaware, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said at a news conference Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact from this criminal organization was much more than falsified paperwork,\u201d he added. \u201cThis conduct, title washing, is oftentimes directly connected to drug trafficking and violent crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday told reporters he could not comment on whether any of the cars were used to commit crimes. That part of the case remains under investigation, he said.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania State Police launched a broader probe into Richardson after finding several stolen vehicles tied to his title and tag company, authorities said.<\/p>\n
In addition to the alleged title fraud, PennDOT sent 145 unissued licensed plates to Richardson Family Enterprises; only two were found during a raid, the affidavit said. More than 90 have been captured by license plate readers across the country, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
PennDOT suspended Richardson in December 2024, and the state revoked his notary license in June.<\/p>\n
Richardson was arrested March 13 and charged with being a part of a corrupt organization, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities, forgery, fraud and other offenses. No attorney was listed as representing him in the state\u2019s docketing system.<\/p>\n
The case was filed in Dauphin County, and Richardson is being held without bail in a jail there. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 24 in Harrisburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jack Tomczuk A West Philadelphia notary is accused of laundering dozens of stolen luxury cars, worth a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31,69,71,70,65052,65054,65053],"class_list":["post-142120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-crime","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philly-man","tag-stolen-cars","tag-title-washing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}