By Danny Fenster
ticklethewire.com
Big goings on in Puerto Rico.
Fifty people have been charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Puerto Rico with conspiracy to commit ID fraud as part of their alleged roles in an ID trafficking scheme. The charges were announced by leaders from the Justice Department, ICE, Homeland Securities Investigations, the US Postal Inspection Service, the State Department and the IRS.
A federal grand jury returned the one-count indictment on Dec. 29. Defendants were arrested Wednesday across Puerto Rico and the United States.
“The indictment unsealed today alleges that from April 2009 to December 2011, the defendants operated an extensive black market, identity fraud ring,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. “The alleged conspiracy stretched across the United States and Puerto Rico, using suppliers, identity brokers and mail and money runners to fill and deliver orders for the personal identifying information and government-issued identity documents of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens.”
Authorities said brokers solicited and sold ID documents in the US for prices between $700 and $2,500 per set, using coded telephone calls to suppliers in Puerto Rico to place orders for the documents. They used terms like “shirts,” “uniforms” or “clothes,” to refer to the documents. “Specifically, the brokers asked for ‘skirts’ for female customers and ‘pants’ for male customers in various ‘sizes,’ which referred to the ages of the identities sought by the customers,” said the Justice Department.
The defendants 15 year maximum sentences and fines of $250,000.
