Person stole $1 million in COVID-19 exams from California clinic, police say

A Santa Ana man accused of stealing extra than $1 million truly worth of COVID-19 assessments from the clinic wherever he labored is evidently on the operate, police explained.

Santa Ana law enforcement reported they attempted to arrest Carlitos Peralta, 33, on Feb. 9 following his employer, Covid Clinic at 3401 W. MacArthur Boulevard, uncovered he was secretly rerouting huge, bulk shipments of the assessments from their workplaces to his property.

The enterprise reported that Peralta place the name of a coworker as the sender on one of the shipments that went to his residence, reported Cpl. Maria Lopez, a police spokeswoman. Soon after the coworker alerted the corporation, they termed police.

“That worker bought a notification and was like, ‘Wait, what?’ and that’s how they began investigating,” Lopez explained.

But Santa Ana detectives who went to Peralta’s house on Feb. 9 could not uncover him. On Thursday, they stated in a assertion that detectives had been asking the general public for information about in which he may well be.

It was not crystal clear Thursday accurately how quite a few assessments had been allegedly stolen. Police mentioned they imagine Peralta rerouted all over 100 unique shipments, which just about every contained numerous boxes of exams.

Law enforcement were being unable to estimate how several tests have been in just about every box. But the total estimated price of the shipments was $1,000,575.

The alleged scheme may possibly have been taking place about several months — the company explained to police that the initially lacking shipment was located to have been rerouted in December 2021, Lopez stated.

Law enforcement also refused to say if any of the shipments had been recovered.

Officers ask any person with information about Peralta to get in touch with detectives at (714) 245-8551.