The Washington Times
A Mexican citizen has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Colorado in a multimillion dollar scheme that saw the distribution of millions of phony identification documents -- including Social Security cards and driver's licenses -- to illegal aliens throughout the United States.
Pedro Castorena-Ibarra, 42, was accused in an indictment handed up this week in U.S. District Court in Denver of maintaining franchises in dozens of U.S. cities to distribute the counterfeit documents from his Guadalajara home.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman Dean Boyd yesterday said authorities have not yet determined how many phony documents were sent to illegal aliens in the United States over the course of the five-year conspiracy, but said the number could be in the "millions and millions." He said 3 million phony papers and cards worth more than $20 million are thought to have been shipped to Los Angeles alone.
The indictment identified Castorena-Ibarra as the "mastermind" of a criminal organization that routed -- for a fee -- phony resident alien cards, Social Security cards, Mexico matricula consular ID cards and driver's licenses from various states in Mexico and the United States.
Posted by Suzanne at July 22, 2005