Guitars flutter, an accordion wheezes and a singer unwinds the triumphant story of Fernando Ochoa Jauregui, a Modesto-area builder of meals vehicles and trailers.
“He nonetheless events simply because he feels prefer it,” the lyrics go. “However what he enjoys essentially the most is partying with a banda at festivals in his city with a wonderful girl by his facet.”
In a video accompanying the Spanish-language corrido, pictures flash of Ochoa beaming in entrance of shiny vehicles and atop jet skis. In some, he wears hats with the brand of his firm: 8A Meals Vans. It ends with footage of stacks of money and a money-counting machine.
The narrative ballad, titled “El del 8A” on YouTube, gives the look that Ochoa is a kingpin on the helm of a burgeoning empire — one who “offers due to his father for making him child.”
However sad 8A Meals Vans clients throughout California — from Sacramento to Salinas and San Bernardino — inform their very own tales. They describe toiling as cooks, custodians and development staff, saving for years to get an opportunity at beginning their very own enterprise, solely to have their goals dashed. In a tough and tumble business, largely secluded in poor, immigrant neighborhoods and farming communities, they allege Ochoa stands out for his callousness.
In lawsuits and interviews, former purchasers accused Ochoa and his firm of not delivering vehicles or trailers they ordered and refusing to return their partial or full funds. Others alleged that they obtained automobiles so poorly constructed that they couldn’t be used. And a few have accused Ochoa of taking again trailers they’d bought from him.
All instructed, 15 alleged victims claimed greater than $475,000 in losses, in response to a Occasions evaluation.
In an interview, Ochoa, 28, disputed a number of of the allegations and acknowledged some errors, chalking them up partly to his inexperience in enterprise, which he stated led to delays in finishing tasks for patrons. “I’m attempting to take care of this scandal so I could make my enterprise higher once more — I had an actual firm,” he stated. “I’m not a enterprise professional. I simply know how one can construct vehicles.”
Ochoa has develop into a logo in Spanish media of the perils that lurk within the cell meals business. In a 2023 report on him, a Univision information anchor warned these coming into the enterprise to train excessive warning. The controversy comes at a fraught second for distributors in Southern California. A number of within the L.A. space have been robbed by gunmen final summer time in brazen assaults that spotlight the dangers of promoting meals on Southland streets.
Alejandro Gonzalez was in a dispute over fee for a trailer when an previous Toyota Camry pulled as much as the drive-through window of Mi Casita Purepecha, his San Bernardino restaurant, on Feb. 1.
“Are you Alejandro?” the front-seat passenger requested Gonzalez, who was standing on the window.
The restaurateur stated he was — and the person pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.
Within the confusion of the second, Gonzalez stated, he turned to assist clients contained in the Mexican restaurant and the Camry sped away. Gonzalez, 44, didn’t acknowledge the boys. However he stated he fears that they’re related to Ochoa. Requested in regards to the incident, Ochoa stated he didn’t ship armed males to Mi Casita Purepecha.
Gonzalez and his spouse, Paulina Quintal, had contacted 8A Meals Vans in early January about constructing them two trailers so they may begin a cell meals enterprise. Ochoa delivered a trailer to their residence two weeks later. Gonzalez stated that he and his spouse paid for it in full, and gave the builder a examine for the down fee on a second one.
San Bernardino resident Alejandro Gonzalez stated that this cell meals trailer, which he bought from 8A Meals Vans, was stolen from his driveway in January.
(Alejandro Gonzalez)
Quickly, nevertheless, males working for Ochoa appeared at Mi Casita Purepecha to dispute Gonzalez’s possession of the trailer he’d purchased days earlier, he stated. Then, after the couple’s examine for the second trailer didn’t clear, a 3rd celebration handed alongside what Gonzalez stated was a threatening voicemail from Ochoa.
On Jan. 21, Gonzalez stated he returned from an errand to search out his trailer had been stolen from his driveway. Looking for solutions, he stated he traveled to 8A Meals Vans’ headquarters in Ceres, Calif., however discovered the positioning abandoned. The following day, Gonzalez stated, the boys with the gun visited him.
Gonzalez filed studies with the San Bernardino Police Division over the theft and the run-in at his restaurant. Concerning Ochoa, Gonzalez stated, “I don’t understand how he sleeps.”
Ochoa denied stealing the trailer from Gonzalez and Quintal’s residence — “I might by no means try this,” he stated — and alleged that that they had not absolutely paid for it, saying that the examine that bounced was meant to go towards the cash they owed on it. Ochoa stated he had despatched two folks to Mi Casita Purepecha to deal with these issues — and to not intimidate the couple.
“None of my individuals are armed,” he stated. “We’re businessmen; we dedicate ourselves to working and constructing trailers.”
Although the greenback quantities in a lot of the circumstances involving Ochoa usually are not massive, for fledgling operators attempting to interrupt into the cell meals business — lots of them working-class immigrants — it’s sufficient to sidetrack their enterprise goals. And their predicaments spotlight the vulnerability of California’s meals business staff, lots of whom lack a monetary security web or the time and expertise required to navigate the authorized system. Some are undocumented and worry talking to authorities.
“There have been nights that we’d cry, my husband and I,” stated Adriana Nicanor, a San Joaquin resident. She and her husband filed a lawsuit in opposition to Ochoa and 8A Meals Vans final yr that asserted he by no means delivered a trailer and claimed he refused to return their $20,000 deposit. They secured a default judgment, court docket information present, however have been unable to gather on it.
“It’s very irritating,” Nicanor stated. “My brother lent me that cash. There have been occasions we’d wrestle. Who asks for this?”
For a lot of of Ochoa’s purchasers, making a down fee on a truck or trailer — each of which usually embody kitchens — was an vital first step in fulfilling a long-held entrepreneurial ambition. Some stated that the alleged losses have been particularly painful as a result of they got here by the hands of one among their very own: a Mexican immigrant who lived within the Central Valley and beforehand labored at an industrial store earlier than founding 8A Meals Vans in 2019.
He’s profiting from “the campesinos — the farmworkers,” stated activist Alicia Espinoza, a Moreno Valley resident who has helped set up a few of Ochoa’s accusers. “My dad, when he got here to this nation, he was a strawberry picker. It simply hurts me that this man might benefit from folks like him.”
Ochoa stated he has many joyful clients and has gone out of his means to assist them obtain their aspirations, noting, for instance, that he has typically accepted fee in installments. “Not many companies try this,” he stated. “You recognize, we’re not a financial institution.” As for the Nicanors, Ochoa denied that he failed to fulfill an agreed-upon deadline for supply, and stated he plans to pay them again.
Mi Casita Purepecha proprietor Alejandro Gonzalez stated a automobile pulled as much as the restaurant’s drive-through window and a passenger pulled a gun on him Feb. 1.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
A number of of these making allegations in opposition to Ochoa reside in Stanislaus County, an agricultural hub whose largest metropolis is Modesto. Wendell Emerson, a deputy district legal professional for the county, confirmed that his workplace is conducting “an lively prison investigation” of Ochoa. He declined to remark additional.
After the incident at Mi Casita Purepecha, Gonzalez closed the restaurant and left San Bernardino, relocating his household — he and his spouse have three youngsters — to a spot they really feel protected.
“I don’t understand how lengthy it’ll be,” Gonzalez stated. “I really feel like I misplaced all the pieces.”
Lawsuits reveal a sample
Ochoa is an entrepreneur of the web age.
Meals business staff who’ve achieved enterprise with the Colima, Mexico, native stated that they discovered him through social media, the place his posts depict knowledgeable on the helm of a affluent firm.
The Instagram account for 8A Meals Vans contains a number of pictures of gleaming automobiles, their chrome steel kitchens spotless underneath shiny lights. The “8A” within the firm’s identify is a play on phrases: pronounced in Spanish, it appears like “Ochoa.”
A lately divorced father of two younger women, Ochoa has positioned 8A as a model past the world of meals companies: There are Instagram pages for a hat firm with 8A within the identify, and one other for a jet-ski rental service. It’s all a part of a slick picture that Ochoa has cultivated on-line, the place it’s simple to search out his self-aggrandizing corridos and pictures of him posing in entrance of his black Chevrolet Corvette.
“Now they see me dwelling properly,” the lyrics of 1 music go, “driving round in a Corvette, buzzing.”
Ochoa’s flaunting of his success has infuriated clients with whom he’s tussled.
For Norma Estevez and her husband, Sebastian Delgado, coming into the cell meals commerce was a step towards realizing an vital aim: proudly owning a enterprise they may go onto their three youngsters. However Estevez and Delgado, each Mexican American, imagine they misplaced more cash than any of Ochoa’s different alleged victims.
The Salinas couple contacted Ochoa in 2021 to construct a pair of trailers, choosing him, Estevez stated, as a result of he was Latino. “He didn’t have many consumers,” she stated, “and you can inform he has this aspiration to succeed.”
Estevez wanted the trailers for an enormous alternative: She had signed a contract with a produce firm in close by Watsonville to feed 70 subject staff for 10 months starting in February 2022. The proprietor had predicated the deal on her securing a trailer and having correct permits.
Ochoa instructed her that every trailer would value $41,000, and promised to finish development by the top of January, in response to Estevez, who confirmed The Occasions invoices that documented the deal.
She and her husband despatched Ochoa $60,000 over the course of a number of months, and because the deadline approached, they scheduled a day to select up the trailers from 8A Meals Vans’ store, Estevez stated. However Ochoa canceled on them, she stated, explaining that “his mom had arrived from Mexico and that he wanted to select her up from the airport.” They rescheduled, however he once more put them off.
By then, Estevez’s contract with the Watsonville firm had begun, and she or he scrambled to honor it. She was compelled to purchase meals for the employees, spending about $37 per individual a day for the following week and a half — an all-in value of practically $26,000. Finally, she rented a kitchen for $800 per week, and did so till the contract concluded, turning solely a small revenue on the deal.
And with out the trailers, Estevez wasn’t in a position to renew the contract. “I felt embarrassed … like we had misplaced a terrific alternative,” she stated.
Ochoa acknowledged that he didn’t meet the agreed-upon deadline — and that the state of affairs was just like that of different purchasers who didn’t obtain their automobiles on time. However, he stated, others have been keen to attend. “Norma’s state of affairs was that if she didn’t get the trailers by a sure date, then she wasn’t going to want them,” he stated.
Estevez and Delgado filed a lawsuit in opposition to Ochoa for breach of contract and different claims in July 2022. Months later, the events agreed to a settlement that referred to as for Ochoa to pay Estevez and Delgado about $70,000, together with legal professional’s charges, in response to court docket paperwork. Estevez stated that Ochoa has solely paid $30,000, leaving her deeply disillusioned.
“We have been like him, we got here to this nation to raised our lives,” she stated. “He knew our dream and ambitions — we instructed him how arduous we labored for it.”
Gonzalez, in the meantime, isn’t the one one who alleged {that a} trailer bought from Ochoa was later taken again by him.
Shelly Lopez and her husband, Jesus Avalos, stated they paid Ochoa $37,000, and after 9 months of delays — and their look in a Univision 19 Sacramento section to debate them — the Sacramento couple obtained a trailer in January 2023.
A person Shelly Lopez recognized as Fernando Ochoa Jauregui got here to her Sacramento residence, she stated, in February 2023 to take the trailer that 8A Meals Vans had lately bought her.
(Courtesy of Shelly Lopez)
After only a week, although, Ochoa instructed Lopez that he wanted to take it again to his store to make some changes, she stated. A video that Lopez offered to The Occasions reveals a person she recognized as Ochoa connecting the trailer to the again of a pickup truck in February 2023.
“I didn’t need to let him take it,” Lopez stated. “However my husband stated, ‘It’s OK, he’ll make the repairs and produce it again to us.’”
It was the final time Lopez and Avalos noticed the trailer.
“We had so many fights after that,” she stated. “It might come up at any time when we have been driving and noticed folks operating their companies, promoting meals. I might blame him for it.”
Ochoa stated that Lopez hadn’t paid for the trailer in full, and that she was making funds in installments. He stated that he solely retrieved the trailer after she instructed him it wanted repairs. After seeing her destructive public feedback about him, Ochoa stated that he determined to void the fee plan, and resolved to return her funds.
Lopez stated she has not gotten the cash again.
‘He’s been laughing at us’
In latest days, Ochoa has come underneath assault on-line by disgruntled clients — and his former mother-in-law.
Gisela Macias, 48, stated that strangers started displaying up at her Modesto residence over the summer time in quest of Ochoa. They got here, she stated, to demand he pay them again for automobiles they’d bought however by no means obtained. The visits have been so frequent that she started recording interviews with among the folks to publish on TikTok.
Ochoa stated that the web activism and native TV information tales have led to an exodus of purchasers, which has imperiled his capability to pay again clients like Estevez. He stated that he can solely make funds in $1,000 increments. “I do know it’s not a lot,” he stated, “however I’ve no enterprise as a result of all the pieces that’s being stated about my firm.”
He stated he needed to shut 8A Meals Vans’ headquarters in Ceres as a result of indignant purchasers stored going there to confront him. However his braggadocio continues to be simple to search out on the web. A 2023 corrido about Ochoa titled “Por 8A Me Conocen” contains the boast that “enterprise is regular and we’re by no means going to cease.”
“I fought arduous and little by little grew the empire that I based,” the singer trills.
It incenses Estevez. “He’s been laughing at us — the individuals who had goals, who labored arduous to economize to make these goals a actuality,” she stated.
Today, the gear that Estevez and her husband purchased for his or her two trailers — ovens, cooking wares and extra — is mothballed of their storage. It’s arduous for her to enter the house with out crying.
“That’s our dream proper there, gathering mud,” she stated.
Occasions researcher Scott Wilson and columnist Gustavo Arellano contributed to this report.
