New Jersey Moving Company Employee Ordered To Pay Restitution to Defrauded Customers

On December 14, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ordered Lola Larios to pay $152,181 in restitution to 49 victims of a moving company fraud scheme. Larios was sentenced for the scheme in September 2022.

Between January 2016 and January 2019, Larios, an employee of multiple New Jersey-based moving companies, conspired with the companies’ owner to regularly extort customers by quoting “low-ball” estimates for moving household goods. Once the goods were loaded onto the moving trucks, Larios and others directed company employees to drastically raise the price of the move and then refuse to deliver the goods until the customers paid the increased price.

DOT-OIG conducted this investigation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-OIG and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Source: U.S. DOT, Office of Inspector General