Las Vegas Now4 Charged With Selling Fake IDs

4 Charged With Selling Fake IDs

(Oct. 16) -- Four Mexican immigrants are in jail on charges of making and selling thousands of fake documents. INS officials are now looking for eight others they say were selling fake IDs at two swap meets on Eastern.

There were a lot of arrests made. Twelve federal grand jury indictments were handed down. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials was only able to arrest four indicted on charges of creating and selling fake IDs at the two swap meets.

Ring members are believed to have been making more than $1,000 a month.

The raid at two indoor swap meets centered on fake IDs being bought and sold. A total of 55 immigrants were taken into custody. Four will face criminal charges for counterfeiting.

Evelyn Hernandez says there were more than 30 arrests at the Bonanza Indoor Swap Center.

"They were handcuffed one after the other," she said.

Marc Sanders with INS says the immigrants were all from Mexico. They were jailed for making and selling all types of fake documents.

"They were Social Security cards, alien registration cards, Nevada identification cards, California ID cards," he said.

Sanders said the investigation started back in 1997.

"They will ask for a picture of the person to put on the card, and they will bring it back to the person, and then the person would pay the fee for the card," he said.

Sanders says the customers are mainly immigrants who use the documents to get jobs. To the untrained eye, the documents are flawless. But the IDs were unlikely to pass major security checkpoints at airports or police stops.

Thirty of those were arrested on lesser charges and voluntarily went back to Mexico rather than face an INS judge.

INS says hopefully the arrests will slow down the bad business out here. But officials say this is a supply-and-demand business, and as long as immigrants come out here to work, it is expected that people will continue to make these fake documents.

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