Puerto Rican citizens victimized by illegal-alien identity thieves

Whenever an American citizen or a police officer complained that there are illegal aliens from Latin American countries impersonating Puerto Ricans in order to avoid arrest and deportation, he or she would be met with ridicule and contempt by politicians and their cohorts inhabiting the nation’s newsrooms. But now that a case has gone through the criminal justice system and adjudication was completed on Wednesday, the same journalists – many of whom work at the nation’s major news outlets – and politicians are ignoring the story, according to a former New York police detective, who was one of the first Puerto Rican first-grade detectives in city history.

U.S. District Judge Juan M. Pérez-Giménez in the District of Puerto Rico also ordered the defendant to serve three years of supervised release and to forfeit $422,793 in illegal proceeds. However some believe the sentence showed a complete disregard for the seriousness of the crime. “If the culprit in the case was an American citizen, does anyone believe he or she wouldn’t get a long-stretch in federal prison?” asks former police officer Iris Aquino.

“This is a case no one wants reported, at least no one who is part of the liberal-left orthodoxy. The fact that American citizens who are legally born Americans are being victimized by having their identities stolen doesn’t seem to bother President Barack Obama and the rest of his administration. It certainly doesn’t concern the news media who appear to have become the Democratic Party’s public relations firm,” said an angry Puerto Rican cop-turned-attorney, Maria Garcia-DeJesus. “You would think that U.S. Congressman Jose Serrano, who represents the Bronx, New York, and is a Puerto Rican would seek justice for his constituents, who vote legally, but that’s not happening,” she added.

According to court documents, illegal aliens had entered Caguas, Puerto Rico, and illegally obtained Puerto Rican identities and ID documents. Co-conspirators located in a number of U.S. cities offered illegal aliens Social Security cards and corresponding birth certificates from Puerto Rico charging between $700 and $2,500 per set of fraudulent IDs.

“The identity brokers in the United States ordered the identity documents from the document suppliers in Savarona, on behalf of their customers, by making coded telephone calls. The conspirators were charged with using text messages, money transfer services and express, priority or regular U.S. mail to complete their illicit transactions,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said .

Court documents also reveal that some of the illegal alien conspirators who were involved in ID trafficking also assumed Puerto Rican identities themselves and used those IDs in the trafficking operation. Their customers would obtain the illegal IDs and at times assumed the identity of actual Puerto Ricans who are born U.S. citizens. They also used their own phony IDs in order to obtain additional identification especially the treasured “legitimate driver’s licenses” from various states.

Some of Mendez-Solis’ minions sold documents to customers who used them to perpetrate financial fraud and to illegally obtain another treasured ID, a legitimate U.S. passport. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Mendez-Solis’ criminal organization fraudulently obtained and illegally sold about 1,500 identities.

Mendez-Solis had an expansive operation with “identity brokers” in cities in Illinois, Indiana, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Alabama, and Rhode Island. About 53 alleged members Mendez-Solis’ criminal enterprise were charged for their roles in the identity trafficking scheme.

“What should anger all Americans – white, black and Latino – is the fact that the U.S. government winks at illegal aliens stealing the identities of citizens sometimes going as far as obtaining credit cards and bank loans. Think about it: A guy who runs a large-scale criminal enterprise gets a measly six-and-a-half years, which means he’ll be out in about three,” said political strategist Michael Baker.