‘Paint mafia’ stole more than R$ 10 million from Toyota with unperformed services

A Toyota dealership in the United States trained an employee of a third-party repair shop to operate the automaker’s internal reimbursement system. Three years later, that same repair shop is facing charges for using the access to charge more than $2.1 million for paint repairs that, in most cases, were never necessary.

The lawsuit was filed against the Autobody Squad, of Malden (Massachusetts), its former owner, Fabio Gomes, and two former employees of Toyota in Watertown, in the metropolitan area of Boston: Rodney Dukes, then director of fixed operations, and Paul Nguyen, former service consultant. According to the lawsuit, the two received outside payments and gifts to keep the fraudulent requests in process.

Photos, approval code and the number of another technician

The target was the Customer Support Program ZKG, created by Toyota in 2019 to pay for the repair of peeling paint caused by defective primer . The program reimburses accredited dealerships and workshops.

The routine described in the process is simple and, therefore, difficult to catch. Autobody Squad photographed the vehicles and entered them into the system using the dealership’s credentials. With this, it obtained the program’s approval code and passed it on to Nguyen, who opened the repair orders and sent the charge to Toyota.

The work orders had the identification number of a technician from the dealership, who, according to the lawsuit, did not carry out any inspection. In 2022, a workshop employee gained access and training on the ZKG portal without the store’s management knowing.

Charges doubled after exclusivity

At first, orders were few and ranged from $3,000 to $6,000. In 2021, when Autobody Squad became the dealership’s exclusive partner, charges rose to the $7,000 to $10,000 range, and the volume of requests grew with it.

An audit carried out between March 2025 and February 2026 showed the distortion: the Watertown store registered an average of 30 paint requests per month, while other dealerships of the brand were at ten or less. Of the cars inspected, 178 — up to 80% of the total — did not show any sign of peeling; the remaining 20% had the problem on some panels. In all, 223 requests did not meet the program’s criteria, but were approved.

The concessionaire even questioned Gomes about the jump in the number of cases, but, according to the lawsuit, accepted the explanation and credited the result to the efficiency of the workshop. Even after the audit, the company would have continued to capture and process orders.

Dukes and Nguyen were fired. Dukes responds for breach of fiduciary duty; Nguyen and the Autobody Squad, for complicity in this breach. The four defendants are accused of civil conspiracy. The case was revealed by the publication Automotive News.