California couple busted for posting YouTube videos of intentional 'accidents'

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An investigation by the California Department of Insurance has led to the arrest of a couple who were allegedly committing all sorts of crimes on the roads, and filming them for their YouTube channel. Well guess what, YouTubers, police have the Internet, too. 

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Kimberly and Christopher Phelps of Yucaipa, California, manage a YouTube channel called BLU3 GHO57. The account has since been deactivated, but when it was live it played host to 162 dash-cam videos of road rage and vehicle-on-vehicle collisions.

After becoming aware of the videos on YouTube, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department started digging and found that around 23 of the documented collisions were linked to 17 insurance claims filed by Phelps, and that 42 videos featured road rage and attempted collisions, multiple of which “appeared to be intentional acts,” according to a press release from the state’s insurance department. The worst part is that the Phelpses’ child appeared to be in the vehicle during several of the incidents. 

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Before hitting him with six felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon; 11 felony counts of insurance fraud; and five felony counts of child endangerment, police executed numerous search warrants, watched hours of the 40-year-old con artists driving like idiots, and tried to track down the victims. 

Christopher was arrested on similar charges last month after he allegedly drove in front of a truck pulling a trailer and then stopped for no reason, causing the pickup to rear-end his vehicle. Not long after the incident, a rear-facing dash-cam video of the incident was posted on the couple’s channel. 

Both Christopher and Kimberly were arrested last week and are being held at separate detention centres on US$500,000 bails.