Miami car dealer rolled back 81,000 miles off odometer, cops say
Miami-Dade police this week arrested a used car dealer who they say rolled back more than 81,000 miles from the odometer of a vehicle he sold a customer last year.
Alejandro Quintero Romero, 41, was arrested Tuesday on felony charges of odometer tampering and organized scheme to defraud, according to a report police released Friday night.
It was not clear Friday if Quintero, from Doral, has an attorney. He could not be immediately reached for comment by phone or email.
According to the arrest report, he sold a woman a 2010 Mazda CX9 for $9,148 from his dealership, Elite Motors of Miami, located at 6341 NW 84th Avenue, in October.
The odometer displayed a reading of around 100,000 miles at the time of the sale, according to the report. After the car began having mechanical issues, the owner brought it to CarMax on July 9 to get an estimated value.
CarMax staff inspected the car and told the owner that the odometer had been tampered with and the reading was not accurate. A CarMax report stated the actual mileage on the car when it was brought in was 181,887 miles, police said.
That is the exact mileage that was recorded when Quintero bought it at auction in September 2020, police said.
When a detective looked at the odometer on July 30, it read 110,782 miles, according to the arrest report.
Quintero denied any wrongdoing when police questioned him, according to the report. Police said he told them the odometer reading was not correct when he bought the car.
