BURDENED by debt and driving home from a night of gambling in West Virginia, Sergio Lopez launched a scheme that at the time must have seemed like a good idea.

He pulled his Volkswagen Jetta up to a random corner, doused the interior with petrol, set it on fire and walked away.

He later made a claim to Nationwide Insurance. He said that the car was missing and that someone could have stolen it.

But when his bluff was uncovered, Lopez found himself standing before the law. He pleaded guilty in his case this year.

Torching cars, especially if one can't meet payments, is set to become a trend.

The Washington Post said among the offenders were:

A police officer

A firefighter

And one man who did it as a favour to a friend.

Investigators say such crimes, which now number in the hundreds, are expected to increase.

Many offenders have fallen behind on payments to car dealerships. This year, more people are behind on such loans than in nearly two decades.

"With what has just happened to the economy in the last week," said Mr Donald Galbreath, a longtime fraud investigator for the insurance industry, "I see the trend will get worse."

Ms Yesenia Gomez and husband Jose Reyes fell behind on payments on their 2007 Dodge Caravan. Gomez torched the car but was caught later.

As Gomez described it to detectives, she had to choose "between the house and the car," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Marc Birnbaum said.

Gomez's attorney, Ms Kimberly Phillips, said Gomez and her husband had tried to return the minivan to the dealership and were desperate.

"She just didn't know where to turn," she said.

Mr Duane Svites, a Maryland deputy chief state fire marshal, said "the market is right" for insurance fraud.

"A lot of people trying to dig themselves out of a jam," he said.

Historically, such arsons go up as people fall behind on car payments, experts say. In 2006, the number of delinquent loans to car dealerships began to rise. It recently reached levels not seen since at least 1990, according to the American Bankers Association.

But why burn a car in the first place? Why not just sell it to a chop shop or push it into a lake?

Car arsonists often want police to find their torched vehicles so they can get claims more quickly.

And unlike setting fire to a home or business, scam artists don't have to make a car fire seem like an accident, because the fraud scheme typically relies on the claim that a car thief set the fire.

Car burns often happen in out-of-the-way places with few witnesses.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Oct 16, 2008.