Five convicted in federal probe of illegal-document ring that stretched

By John Agar | The Grand Rapids Press ^ | January 19, 2011 | By John Agar | By John Agar

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GRAND RAPIDS – Last spring, federal investigators began looking into a ring that produced and sold documents to illegal Hispanic residents in the city.

Police conducted three “controlled buys,” obtaining Social Security and permanent resident cards, before investigators raided an apartment on Seventh Street NW in June. There, they seized computers, laminating machines, card-making machines and other items used to make false documents, and arrested several people for being in this country illegally.

This week, three of the five suspects accused in a large-scale scheme tied to Mexico were convicted of charges in U.S. District Court. Two others pleaded guilty before the four-day trial.

"Evidence established that the document operation was financed by criminal elements from inside Mexico, who not only provided the expensive equipment used in producing high-quality documents that included U.S. Permanent Resident Cards (green cards), Social Security cards, and driver licenses from states such as Michigan, Illinois and North Carolina, but who also dictated which areas within the Greater Grand Rapids area a particular document crew could operate within and received monthly payments from their franchisees," prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the three who went to trial -Eddie Castilla-Lugo, 37, Israel Aremendariz-Becerra, 41, and Miguel Merlos-Gonzalez, 32 – had been staying in Wichita, Kan., shortly before they joined the fraud operation that was already under investigation. Two others, Jose Reyes-Gonzalez, 34, and Eduardo Lopez-Sosa, pleaded guilty to charges before the trial began at the federal courthouse in Kalamazoo.

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five_convicted_in_federal_prob. How about this will oabama file lawsuits saying unddocument fraud thia is a fedreal matter ? States shout butt out ?Let congress attend it.Like this like to have and waht is doing done nto shoot down SB 1070

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Five convicted in federal probe of illegal-document ring that stretched from Grand Rapids to Mexico
Not enough room to post complete headline, very sorry

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Ping!

[OneWingedShark]

To tell the truth I’m more worried about the “official agencies” being corrupt than this sort of counterfeiting-ring?

[OneWingedShark]

*’.’, not ‘?’; I didn’t mean that to be a question, but a statement.