BREMERTON — Two Bremerton brothers were charged with allegedly altering vehicle odometers to make the mileage appear 80,000 to 190,000 less than the true mileage and then selling the vehicles at inflated prices.
Mohammad K. Khalil, 25, and his brother, Ahmed Kivi Khalil, 24, both of Bremerton, were charged with certificate of ownership false statement or illegal transfer and forgery, according to Kitsap County court documents.
The offenses are considered “major economic offenses” because they involved multiple victims over a lengthy period of time.
According to a certificate of probable cause in a Kitsap County District Court court document, Mohammed Khalil allegedly sold a 2002 Subaru Impreza for $5,300 to a woman. Khalil advertised the vehicle for sale on craigsist.com and said it had 106,000 miles on the odometer.
Upon closer inspection, it was learned the title to the vehicle had been altered and that the vehicle actually had 206,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the sale. The woman contacted Bremerton Police about the incident in January, 2014.
Khalil had provided the buyer with several repair invoices and a CarFax report that all showed the mileage to be around 100,000 miles, but an investigation later found those documents had been altered to show the reduced mileage figure.
Search warrants were issued for the Craigslist.com account the brothers had used and it was learned that more than 200 vehicle ads had been placed.
According to the report, “The Khalils went to great lengths to hide their involvement in these car deals by switching phone numbers often, using fictitious names in the ads, providing false names to the original sellers and potential buyers, never registering the vehicles in their names and meeting buyers at neutral locations.”
A Bremerton Police Department detective was able to identify more than 40 VIN numbers related to the Khalil’s account.
“ALL of them had electronic odometers and ALL of the odometers had been turned back,” to show an adjusted mileage between 80,000 to 190,000 miles less than the true mileage, the detective’s report stated.
“This helped to falsely inflate the value of the cars by as much as $3,100 per car,” the report stated.
According to the report, the brothers gave buyers several reasons why each vehicle was being sold such as:
• For a sister who was away at college.
• For an aunt, who was in the hospital.
• For their mother who was dying of lung cancer and unable to drive.
• For a cousin who worked at a coffee stand close to her home, which was why the mileage was low.
• To become and underwater welder.
• Because he was a military translator and was leaving town.
