A South Florida woman is facing a stack of felony charges after investigators say she helped pull off one of the more brazen auto loan fraud schemes in recent Miami-Dade County memory. Dunia Sierra, 38, allegedly walked into multiple car dealerships over the course of eight days and drove away with a small fleet of vehicles, including a Corvette Stingray, a BMW i8, and three Harley-Davidson motorcycles. The only problem? The income she put on her loan applications was, according to authorities, completely made up.

Investigators with the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office Organized Crimes Bureau Auto Crimes Task Force say Sierra's loan paperwork listed her as the general manager of a Miami Lakes restaurant pulling in more than $180,000 a month. In reality, she worked there as a waitress and cashier and had never held any kind of management role at the establishment. That is quite the promotion on paper.

Sierra was arrested Thursday and is being held on a $26,000 bond. She is charged with organized fraud, grand theft, and vehicle-related fraud. Her case is just one piece of a larger investigation into what authorities describe as a sophisticated fraud ring involving dealership finance managers, auto brokers, and so-called "straw buyers" across Miami-Dade County.

At the center of this case is a scheme type that financial investigators refer to as a "credit bust-out," and the name is about as dramatic as the scheme itself. The idea is fairly simple, even if the execution requires some coordination: participants rapidly purchase multiple high-value items, in this case vehicles, before those transactions have time to show up on their credit reports.

Because credit bureaus do not update in real time, there is often a short window between when a purchase is made and when it actually appears on a buyer's credit file. Fraudsters exploit that gap by racing to secure as many loans as possible before lenders can see the full picture of what they have taken on. Add in falsified employment information and inflated income figures, and suddenly someone who should not qualify for a single car loan is walking out of multiple dealerships in the same week with the keys to a luxury vehicle fleet.

In Sierra's case, that window appears to have been October 4 through October 12, 2023, just eight days during which investigators say she acquired 10 vehicles. Financial documents reviewed by authorities in January 2026 confirmed the purchases.

If you are going to allegedly commit fraud, the shopping list here suggests Sierra was not thinking small. The vehicles linked to her include a 2019 BMW i8 (a hybrid sports car that retailed for well over $140,000 new), a 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, a 2018 Mercedes S560, a 2024 Kia Telluride, a 2024 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy, a 2022 Mazda CX-9, a 2023 Toyota Highlander XLE, and three 2023 Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Two of the dealership transactions took place within Miami-Dade County itself.

For context, the BMW i8 alone carries a sticker price that would require a very real six-figure salary to finance conventionally. Spread across 10 vehicles, the total loan value involved in this alleged scheme would likely run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.

Sierra is not the only person caught up in this investigation. Authorities say the alleged fraud ring involved finance managers working at car dealerships who reportedly helped push fraudulent loans through by sidestepping lending guidelines and violating their agreements with financial institutions. Those loans were also allegedly structured to be "front-loaded" with optional add-ons that generated higher commissions for the managers involved, giving them a direct financial incentive to look the other way.

Auto brokers were also allegedly part of the network, helping connect straw buyers like Sierra, people who apply for loans in their own name on behalf of the scheme, with dealerships and lenders. The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office Organized Crimes Bureau Auto Crimes Task Force continues to investigate, and Sierra's arrest suggests the case is still developing. Anyone watching the used luxury car market in South Florida may want to pay close attention to what comes next.