Officials Raid Illegal-Document Operation
Officials Raid Illegal-Document Operation
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Category: Life
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/us/26immig.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
CHICAGO, April 25 — Federal authorities charged 22 people on Wednesday with being part of one of the nation's largest operations to produce counterfeit identification documents.
Officials described a sophisticated organization that operated out of a discount shopping mall in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood here, where customers willing to pay $200 or $300 could walk away hours later with high-quality fraudulent documents, including driver's licenses from various states and Social Security cards.
Immigration officials said they believed that the organization was operating in other cities, including Denver and Los Angeles.
The organization made profits of $2 million to $3 million annually, officials said, and produced documents for as many as 100 customers a day.
The operation recently turned violent in an effort to maintain its competitive edge, said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney here. Mr. Fitzgerald said the Chicago ringleader of the organization, Julio Leija-Sanchez, had conspired to kill two former members of the organization who had stolen equipment and planned to start their own enterprise in Indiana.
One of the two competitors was killed in Mexico between March 31 and April 3 at Mr. Leija-Sanchez's behest, Mr. Fitzgerald said. Plans were under way to kill the other man at the time of the arrests, he said.
Of the 22 people charged on Wednesday, 12, including Mr. Leija-Sanchez, are in custody. The other 10 are fugitives, and 4 are believed to be in Mexico, the authorities said. Mr. Leija-Sanchez, 31, is also charged individually with conspiring to commit murder outside the United States.
Prosecutors said the ring had been active since at least 2003. Customers seeking identification documents would meet vendors in and around the Little Village Discount Mall here. The vendors would ask what type of document the customer wanted, according to an affidavit. Undercover agents posed as customers and received various false documents, including driver's licenses and green cards.
Customers provided personal information they wanted to appear on documents. That information included fictitious or stolen identities, officials said. After having their photos taken at a shop in the mall and leaving a deposit, customers could return hours later to pick up the documents, the authorities said.
Though the organization is based in Mexico and most of its members are of Mexican descent, those who bought false documents were of various ethnic backgrounds, and included United States citizens, the authorities said.
On Tuesday, armed agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out a midafternoon raid at the mall, where the authorities said the organization maintained its primary office. Investigators seized printers, scanners and hundreds of blank identification cards, including Social Security cards.
The raid angered some immigration-rights advocates, who said they believed that it was carried out to intimidate the immigrant community just days before a May 1 rally on proposed changes in immigration policy.
"This has nothing to do with that," said Mr. Fitzgerald, who said the goal was to catch members of the ring in action during its business hours. "We need to go where the criminal activity was carried out to catch them in the act."
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