A Portland man was arrested last week after authorities say he was illegally towing cars and selling them to be destroyed.

Carlos Lopez Torres, 51, was arrested July 2. He was released from the Multnomah County Detention Center the next day on his own recognizance.

He’s accused of using fake lien paperwork to sell the vehicles he towed to dismantling companies, according to Portland police. The agency declined to release more information, citing an ongoing investigation.

Lopez Torres faces allegations of unauthorized use of a vehicle, false swearing regarding regulation of vehicle business, acting as a vehicle dealer without a certificate, conducting a motor vehicle dismantling business without a certificate, trafficking in stolen vehicles and first-degree theft. He is accused of taking cars between Jan. 12 and July 2, prosecutors said in court documents.

The documents don’t say how many cars Lopez Torres is suspected of towing. He registered Carlos Towing LLC with the Oregon Secretary of State Office in June 2018, state records show.

Michael Rodriguez, who is listed in court documents as a victim in the case, said he awoke to go to the store, stepped outside his Northeast Portland trailer home Jan. 12 and discovered his Chevrolet S-10 pickup and Subaru Legacy were missing.

“The vehicles were on my private property and I didn’t know who had taken them,” Rodriguez told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “He just showed up like the repo man and stole them from me basically.” He reported the stolen vehicles to police.

Rodriguez still didn’t know where his car and pickup were until he got a call from police on July 2 and was told to contact the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles because his vehicles had been listed by the state agency as dismantled.

He said he called the DMV and was given the name of Carlos Towing as the company that took his car and truck. He also learned from the DMV that his vehicles had been crushed at a Northeast Portland metals recycling company on the same day they were taken.

Rodriguez said he relayed the DMV information to police. Officers called later that day and said Lopez Torres had been arrested, he said.

In Oregon, tow operators must have a certificate issued by the DMV and a license plate that shows their tow trucks are authorized to haul vehicles, said David House, a spokesman for the agency. The DMV didn’t issue Lopez Torres and Carlos Towing a certificate or license plate, House said.

Illegal towing and car-crushing were the focus of a major investigation in Portland several years ago.

In 2014, 34 people were indicted in connection with the operation. Investigators said two family-run North Portland auto yards would pay cash to buy stolen cars from across the metro area and then crush them for metal. Police and prosecutors said a network of illegal tow truck drivers hauled more than 100 cars off the street and delivered them to A-1 Light Truck & Van Parts and West Coast Car Crushing. The car dismantlers would destroy the cars without titles or ownership documents as required by state law, prosecutors said.

Tony Schneider, the owner of the two businesses involved, was sentenced in 2018 to a little more than a year in prison and ordered to pay $500,000 in restitution. His eldest son, Tony Schneider Jr., was sentenced to two months in jail. Another son, Joseph Schneider, was sentenced to three years of probation. Daughter Andrea Schneider, who police said scouted Interstate 5 for cars to tow, was sentenced to six years in prison.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey

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