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 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? According to authorities, the income she listed on her loan applications was 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, according to WSVN 7News. 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 on 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 investigators refer to as a “credit bust-out.” At its most basic level, it exploits a simple timing gap: purchases do not show up on a credit report immediately.

Because credit bureaus do not update in real time, there is often a short window between when a loan is approved and when it becomes visible to other lenders. That gap can be used to secure multiple loans in rapid succession before anyone sees the full picture.

Investigators have not outlined Sierra’s exact role or who else may have been involved in this case. According to NBC 6 South Florida, these schemes often involve multiple people, including recruiters, straw buyers, and sometimes even insiders at dealerships.

In many cases, someone with decent credit is recruited and paid to apply for loans using inflated or completely falsified financial information. Add that to the timing gap, and suddenly someone who should not qualify for a single loan can walk out of multiple dealerships in the same week with a fleet of vehicles.

From there, the vehicles are often taken by organizers and pushed into black-market networks, where they may be stripped of identifying information such as VINs, dismantled for parts, resold under altered identities, or shipped out of the country. Losses tied to these schemes can reach into the millions, and those costs can eventually trickle down to everyday buyers through higher prices and rising insurance rates.

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.