Troy Lake was born and raised in Wyoming, where his father owned an automotive shop. Troy, who is now 65 years old, also went into the family business. He eventually moved to Colorado and opened Elite Diesel. By all accounts, he lived a quiet family life with his wife, Holly, and their son, TJ. He was also the “go-to mechanic for over-the-road truckers and others running diesel engines.”
Until 2018. One day in October of that year, the Lakes and one of their employees were enjoying a meal at a local Olive Garden when the federal government executed a search warrant on Elite Diesel. They watched via an app on their phones that accessed the shop’s cameras.
“It looked like a military operation,” Holly told Cowboy State Daily. She said black SUVs were lined up outside, and “agents in tactical gear” raided the place, going through every corner of the building, rifling through their equipment, and reading their personal files.
After what the Lakes call the “raid,” nothing happened for several years. The family eventually decided to move back to Wyoming, taking Elite Diesel with them. They even contacted the feds to let them know they were moving and stayed in touch, trying to do everything on the up-and-up.
But today, Troy Lake sits in federal prison in Colorado, where he has spent the last six months.
So what did he do that’s so bad? Was his shop part of some sort of money laundering scheme? Was he using it as a base for human trafficking? Was he hiding murdered bodies in there?
Nope. Troy was helping truckers by removing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-mandated emissions systems that were preventing their trucks from operating correctly.
According to TJ, during the mid-2000s, shortly after the EPA created stronger emissions standards on heavy diesel trucks, drivers began having problems with brand-new vehicles. They’d bring those trucks to Troy, asking if he could fix them. He found that the problem was these new systems, which were built to limit exhaust by recirculating dirty air. They may have helped with emissions, but they were killing the engines’ lifespans.
Hellbound and Down 