Smog check cheaters busted, feds say; California ring allegedly turned pollution into cash

Federal prosecutors in Sacramento on Thursday unsealed an indictment charging 12 people from around the state with violating the Clean Air Act in what they portrayed as a long-running, sophisticated and surprisingly widespread scheme to cheat on smog tests.

The defendants “polluted the air we breathe for their own profit and harmed the health of Californians,” U.S. Atty. Phillip Talbert said in a statement. All 12 were arrested at their homes Thursday morning and will be arraigned in court at a later date, a spokesperson said. They face up to five years in prison if convicted.

California requires most cars to pass a smog emissions inspection every two years. But for as long as California has had those rules, which were instituted decades ago, there have been car owners who despaired that their cars wouldn’t pass the tests, and unscrupulous smog check operations willing to help them cheat.

In the old days, cheating at a smog test was easy: A smog operation (there are approximately 7,000 in California) would just sign off. To combat that, California made it harder to defraud, by developing software that prevented such trickery.

Leave a Comment