The California Department of Motor Vehicles reports it has arrested the owner of Auto Management Group (AMG) and his associates for illegally subleasing vehicles, embezzlement, conspiracy, grand theft and interstate transport of stolen vehicles. Muinchau Pham, the owner of AMG, is alleged to have solicited consumers via the internet to sublease their vehicles to a third party. These consumers usually were unable to make their payments and were upside down in their loans. Pham sublet the vehicles, usually to someone other than that person named as “user” on the contract, for a fee of $5,000 to $15,000, with the named "user" obligated to make the monthly lease payments. Of course, those payments were not made and the original owners suffered damage to their credit ratings. The vehicles’ locations and actual drivers were concealed from the original owners. Some of the vehicles were driven out of state and the registrations were changed into other names.
The vehicles involved in Pham’s scheme were high end Mercedes, BMW’s, Land Rovers, Bentleys, and Porsches valued at $50,000 to $250,000 each.