Photo: Stock Image
On December 20th a former insurance agent was sentenced to pay restitutions to all victims and revocation of their Insurance License after embezzling clients money into their personal account.
In February 2020 an investigation in regards to a complaint that was made to the Department of Insurance against Insurance Agent Anaiza Villarreal Lopez (30) was launched. During the investigation it was discovered that Lopez had embezzled more than $1200 from seven clients. Most of the victims were reported to be primarily Spanish speaking and low income.
She did this by pocketing their premium payments which were supposed to secure their auto insurance policies.
Lopez admitted to stealing the clients premiums made to the access cards and putting the money onto her personal “Square” account for her personal use.
She was able to get the victims to send the funds to her personal “Square “account by naming the account “Auto Insurance”. This led the victims to believe they were depositing the money into the correct account for their auto insurance.
Some of the losses were caught and covered by Lopez’s former employer who was unaware of Lopez’s actions.
Lopez’s license was revoked on October 5th 2022. She is being ordered to pay full restitutions to all the clients and also to her former employer who had to cover some of the client’s losses.
Written By: Patrice Spears
