Illegal Document Operation Busted in Florida

(Hillsborough County, Florida) The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Attorney's Office announced the arrests of 18 people involved in an illegal document production and distribution operation.

The illegal document operation was run out of auto sales and title companies and seven additional suspects who worked for the companies have been indicted.

The companies involved included Inter Car and Truck Sales, Jimaguas Auto Sales, April Lopez Title Co. and Julia Garcia Title Co., all of which operated openly, even boldly advertising their document services.

"Do you need to obtain a tag or title for your car or truck?" one flier said. "We can do it with a license from Mexico or any other country, a voter's registration, a consulate ID, an international DL, or any official ID."

The businesses weren't lying. Investigators learned they gave undocumented immigrants fake driver's licenses, Social Security cards, insurance cards or other licenses, which the companies handed to the Hillsborough County Tax Collector's Office in exchange for authentic titles and vehicle registrations.

The suspects have been charged with a laundry list of offenses including producing fraudulent vehicle identification numbers, applications, certificates and papers; uttering a forced instrument; false or fraudulent motor vehicle insurance application; fraud and misuse of documents, visa or other permits; fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents or Social Security cards.

And the Tax Collector's Office couldn't be blamed, detectives found, because state guidelines limit clerks from checking IDs - exposing a loophole the sheriff says only legislation can fix.

Since the Tax Collector's Office doesn't have the capabilities, nor the apparent authority, to check the authenticity of identification documents presented, the is no administrative mechanism to stop the scammers. The Tax Collector's Office employees are forced to accept any bogus piece of paper put in front of them.

Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said a legislative fix is needed.