Siblings from Suffolk admit using fraudulent loan documents to purchase vehicles, then resell them online for quick cash

Siblings from Suffolk County admitted leading a multimillion-dollar scheme using fraudulent loan documents to purchase vehicles from car dealerships and resell them with cleaned titles for quick cash, Suffolk prosecutors said Monday.

Mark McCall, 34, of Centereach, pleaded guilty before State Supreme Court Justice Steven Pilewski in Riverhead Sept. 10 to attempted enterprise corruption and gun charges and is expected to serve 5 years in state prison, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. His half brother, Keith Agard, 32, of Port Jefferson Station, pleaded guilty to similar charges in May and was sentenced to 1 to 3 years in prison, prosecutors said.

"Enterprise corruption is a systematic exploitation of the rules that safeguard our communities," Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said in a statement. "These defendants went to great lengths to fleece buyers, giving them vehicles with hidden liens and pocketing their hard-earned money."

Prosecutors identified McCall and Agard as the leaders of a group of more than 30 co-defendants who erased liens and forged DMV paperwork before selling the fraudulently obtained vehicles to online dealerships like CarMax, on Facebook Marketplace, or to co-conspirators carrying backpacks full of cash to New York City meetup spots. In one instance a vehicle was sold at a Pennsylvania auction, prosecutors previously said.

The scheme began in March 2022 and continued until the crew was indicted in May 2025, prosecutors said.

McCall and Agard worked with their girlfriends and five others to coordinate the purchases by using what they called "bodies," people who physically went to the dealerships and bought the vehicles with little to no money down by submitting fraudulently inflated credit scores, forged paystubs and utility bills, prosecutors said. Credit scores were increased by adding the "bodies" as authorized users on existing credit accounts or by providing them with prepaid credit cards, court documents show.

In an effort to avoid detection, the buyers would acquire as many cars as possible in a short amount of time, visiting multiple Suffolk dealerships, Assistant District Attorney Blythe Miller said at a 2025 arraignment. Miller prosecuted the case with fellow Assistant District Attorney James Bartens.

Phone numbers and addresses submitted on loan paperwork belonged to "upper management" in the scheme, so communications flowed through them, the prosecutors said. Few payments were ever made.

The prosecution was the result of a 2½-year investigation by Suffolk law enforcement that included wiretaps, video surveillance and monitoring of iCloud accounts revealing cellphone activity.

The investigation revealed the members of the enterprise "cleaned" the titles on the vehicles by fraudulently erasing liens that made it possible to resell the vehicles for an average of nearly $43,000, prosecutors said.

The group submitted forged New Jersey titles to the New York Department of Motor Vehicles, requested new titles after submitting checks they knew would bounce, and forged lien letters to produce the clean titles, prosecutors said.

Listings for the vehicles boasted of "clean Carfax titles," as they listed Toyota and Lexus sports cars from a Coram address on Facebook Marketplace.

Prosecutors said last year that investigators were able to determine that $386,500 was received for nine of the vehicles, two bought with cash and seven CarMax paid for with checks. Miller had said using the average from those sales, prosecutors believed the total amount garnered from the scheme could be more than $5.5 million.

McCall pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a weapon and Agard pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a weapon. Those charges were related to guns found at their homes when investigators executed search warrants, prosecutors said.

In total, 32 additional defendants pleaded guilty, with sentences ranging from 6 months to up to 3 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Agard's attorney, Tara Laterza said late Monday: "Mr. Agard has accepted responsibility and is serving his sentence, but the phrase 'enterprise corruption' makes this case sound very different from what it is. At its core, this is nothing more than grand larceny offenses."

McCall's attorney, Jonathan Manley, said in a statement that he and his client are "very satisfied" with the outcome of the case.

"Though we did have serious questions about whether this was actually a 'criminal enterprise,' this outcome was very fair and helped us avoid a trial," Manley said in a text message.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.