Fourteen individuals were charged in three indictments in Puerto Rico
with conspiracy to commit identification fraud, money laundering,
aggravated identity theft and passport fraud in connection with their
alleged roles in a scheme to traffic the identities and corresponding
identity documents of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice
Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia
Rodriguez-Velez for the District of Puerto Rico, Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary Thomas Winkowski of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), which oversees Homeland Security Investigations
(HSI), Chief Postal Inspector Guy Cottrell of the U.S. Postal Inspection
Service (USPIS), Chief Richard Weber of the Internal Revenue Criminal
Investigation Division (IRSCID) and Director Bill Miller of the State
Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) made the announcement.
The multi-count indictments were returned by a federal grand jury on Aug. 6, 2014.
Since that time, five of the defendants have been found and arrested (four in Puerto Rico and one in Florida).
They will be arraigned in federal court this week.
Arrest warrants have been issued for the remaining defendants,
who will make their initial appearances in federal court in the
districts in which they are arrested.
According to the indictments, from at least July 2008 through April
2014, conspirators in the mainland United States and in Puerto Rico sold
the identities and corresponding Social Security cards, Puerto Rico
birth certificates and other identification documents of Puerto Rican
U.S. citizens to undocumented aliens and others residing in the mainland
United States.
Specifically, the indictments allege that individuals located in the
Caguas, Rio Piedras and San Juan areas of Puerto Rico (suppliers)
obtained Puerto Rican identities and corresponding identity documents,
and conspirators in various locations in the United States (identity
brokers) solicited customers for those identities and documents.
The identity brokers allegedly sold the identities and
documents to the customers for prices ranging from $700 to $2,500 per
set of Social Security cards and corresponding Puerto Rico birth
certificates.
According to the indictment, the identity brokers ordered the identity
documents from the suppliers by making coded telephone calls, including
using terms such as “shirts,” “uniforms” or “clothes” to refer to
identity documents.
The suppliers generally requested that the identity brokers
send payment for the documents through a money transfer service to names
provided by the suppliers.
The conspirators frequently confirmed payee names and
addresses, money transfer control numbers and trafficked identities via
text messaging.
The suppliers allegedly retrieved the payments from the money
transfer service and sent the identity documents to the brokers using
express, priority or regular U.S. Mail.
According to the indictments, once the identity brokers received the
identity documents, they delivered the documents to the customers and
obtained the remaining payment from the customers.
The brokers generally kept the second payment for themselves as profit.
Some identity brokers allegedly assumed a Puerto Rican identity
themselves and used that identity in connection with the trafficking
operation.
As alleged in the indictments, the customers generally obtained the
identity documents to assume the identity of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens
and obtain additional identification documents, such as state driver’s
licenses.
Some customers allegedly obtained the documents to commit financial fraud and others attempted to obtain U.S. passports.
The indictments alleges that various identity brokers were operating in Indianapolis,
Columbus and Seymour, Indiana; Aurora, Illinois; Bartow,
Florida; Lawrenceville, Jonesboro and Norcross, Georgia; Salisbury,
Maryland; Columbus, Ohio; Lawrence and Springfield, Massachusetts; Grand
Rapids, Michigan; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Houston, Texas; Guymon,
Oklahoma; Huron, South Dakota and Albertville, Alabama.
The charges announced today are the result of Operation Island Express
II, an ongoing, nationally-coordinated investigation led by the ICE-HSI
Chicago Office and USPIS, DSS and IRS-CID offices in Chicago, in
coordination with the ICE-HSI San Juan Office.
The Illinois Secretary of State Police provided substantial assistance.
The ICE-HSI Attaché office in the Dominican Republic, National
Drug Intelligence Center - Document and Media Exploitation Branch and
International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2)
provided invaluable assistance, as well as various ICE, USPIS, DSS and
IRS CI offices around the country.
The case is being prosecuted by the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime
and Gang Section, with the assistance of the Criminal Division’s Human
Rights and Special Prosecution Section, and the support of the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the District of Puerto Rico.
Anyone who believes that their identity may have been compromised by the
crimes that are the subject of to this investigation may contact the
ICE toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (1-866-347-2423) and its online
tip form at
www.ice.gov/tipline
.
Anyone who may have information about particular crimes in this case should report it to the ICE tip line or website.
Anyone who believes that they have been a victim of identity theft, or
wants information about preventing identity theft, may obtain helpful
information and complaint forms on various government websites including
the Federal Trade Commission ID theft website,
www.ftc.gov/idtheft
.
Additional resources regarding identity theft can be found at
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/pubs/I
D_theft/idtheft.html
;
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10064.html
;
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/identity_theft
; and
http://www.irs.gov/privacy/article/0,,id=186436,00.html
.
An indictment is merely a formal accusation. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
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