Asian Crime In NM & CA
The day after the shooting, while Kait’s family was
at the hospital, waiting for her to die, one of Kait's friends informed
them that Dung was a member of an Asian crime ring that Kait was in a
position to expose. This now has been confirmed.
One of the many activities this group was involved
in was car wreck insurance fraud. Dung and his friends from Albuquerque
would fly to Orange County, CA, rent or steal cars, and then stage
wrecks, claiming fake injuries. The participants would be paid $1,500;
doctors, lawyers and paralegals would rake in the Big Money. Dung has
confessed to staging two such wrecks, one of which Kait witnessed, and
told investigators that he knew of up to 20 other people in Albuquerque
who were also involved. APD did not even take the names of those people
and did not inform the insurance companies or law enforcement in
California.
Several members of Dung’s group have also been identified as interstate drug dealers and participants in a racket to steal and sell computer chips. No statements were ever taken from any of those suspects.
Dung has since identified An Quoc Le, his alibi friend for the night
of the shooting, as a participant in the car wreck scam. He has also
identified the insurance fraud capper in California as An Quoc Le's
cousin, Bao Tran, housemate of a convicted arsonist, Hong Phuc Duy Van.
Both men were employed at the law office of Minh Nguyen Duy/ aka Minh
Bui Nguyen/ aka Duy Minh Nguyen, an attorney in Orange County who
specializes in auto accident and personal injury cases. His partner was
Scott Gentilly. Kait's final phone bill showed calls to Bao Tran, made
from her apartment as soon as she was pronounced dead.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON ASIAN CAR WRECK OPERATIONS:
The John Cooke Insurance Fraud Report, a national trade paper
for fraud investigators, responded to Kait's story with a full page
article titled "The Case That Will Not Go Away":
Sept.-Oct., 1996: "Kait’s web site offers a tremendous amount of
information that has been painstakingly gathered by the Arquette family
during their unrelenting seven-year search. It asks tough questions and
points a finger at a potential cover-up that extends far beyond what was
originally thought possible.
"Recent investigation has turned up evidence that the staged auto accident players may also be involved in drug trafficking, stolen cars and stolen computer chips. Connected insurance fraud activity has turned up in Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Albuquerque, El Paso, Houston, Dallas and Kansas City."
