A Harris County operation accused of faking thousands of vehicle emissions inspection reports has landed two more men behind bars, with investigators saying the scheme generated roughly 800 fraudulent passing reports a day using equipment moved between inspection sites. Marlon Rivas, 22, and Justin Goulet, 29, are two of four men accused of running the mobile fraud network, and both now face charges of engaging in organized criminal activity.
Analyzers Moved From Mykawa Road to a House on Viceroy Drive
According to court records cited by ABC13, the four men operated a network that used vehicle analyzers — the devices that plug into a car's computer system during the inspection process — moved between locations to generate passing reports for vehicles that were never actually tested. Texas Department of Public Safety investigators found one such analyzer at a location on Viceroy Drive, and records showed it was registered to an inspection station on Mykawa Road. Employees at the Mykawa location denied any involvement in the alleged operation and told investigators they had not conducted vehicle inspections there in months, the outlet reports.
The DPS investigation into the ring dates back to May. An alleged ringleader, who still has an outstanding arrest warrant, is accused of directing Rivas to move the analyzers from location to location, communicating with him by text to coordinate the equipment's movements. Goulet is described in court records as the group's technology expert, the person who tended to the equipment that kept the scheme running. A hearing officer said Goulet provided the technology that enabled the group to carry out the alleged scheme.
Investigators Say Fraud Totaled Over $1 Million
Investigators estimate the group tampered with roughly 24,000 inspection records in a single month, averaging about 800 fraudulent reports per day. Real vehicles received passing inspection reports regardless of whether they would have actually passed a genuine inspection, according to the same report. A DPS agent put the value of the fraudulent documents somewhere between $1.2 million and $2.4 million, and investigators describe the overall operation as worth more than $1 million. Law enforcement refers to this kind of scheme as clean scanning — a term state regulators use for testing one vehicle, or using an electronic simulator, to produce a fraudulent passing report for another vehicle entirely, as defined under Texas Administrative Code § 23.62(c)(3)(D).
Court records indicate all four men linked to the operation have previously faced similar allegations. Rivas and Goulet were arrested in connection with the investigation and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, a charge that under Texas Penal Code § 71.02 requires showing that three or more people collaborated on an underlying felony — such as tampering with government records — and bumps the potential penalty up a level, according to Versus Texas. Falsifying a state inspection report on its own already qualifies as tampering with a governmental record, a state jail felony or third-degree felony depending on intent, per the L&L Law Group.
Why Clean Scanning Still Pays in Harris County
The incentive behind schemes like this one traces back to a change in state law. House Bill 3297, which took effect January 1, 2025, eliminated mandatory annual vehicle safety inspections across Texas, but the law kept mandatory emissions testing in place in 17 urban counties — including Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Galveston, and Montgomery — according to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Emissions testing remains mandatory in Harris County.
Gasoline-powered non-commercial vehicles between 2 and 24 model years old registered in those designated counties must still pass an On-Board Diagnostic computer scan before registration renewal, per the Texas Department of Public Safety. Vehicle owners statewide also still owe a $7.50 Inspection Program Replacement Fee at renewal — $16.75 for new vehicles covering two years — to help fund state highways, even though the old safety-inspection sticker is gone.
This is not the first time Texas regulators have targeted this kind of fraud. In August 2022, DPS launched Operation Cinderblock, a statewide crackdown that led to administrative action against more than 400 inspection stations and 500 inspectors by early 2023. State task force estimates from late 2023 suggested as many as 5 million vehicles across Texas received fraudulent emissions passes annually through clean scanning and related schemes, according to KXAN-TV — a figure that puts the roughly 24,000 records tampered with in this single Houston-area ring into a much larger statewide picture. Under current administrative rules, DPS can also immediately suspend or revoke an inspection station's or inspector's license without a prior hearing if clean-scanning activity is found to pose an immediate threat to public welfare.
The enforcement zone is still growing. Bexar County, home to San Antonio, is scheduled to join the mandatory emissions testing program on November 1, pushing the number of counties under the requirement to 18. Whether the registered Mykawa Road station was an unwitting victim of equipment taken off its premises or played some other role in the alleged scheme remains an open question in the case.
