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Majority are ooing or wor or resience
ions of the counterfeit ID mar-et.”The majority of people seekingalse identification are probablyooking for work or residency inhe United States, Toms said. Amaller percentage, he said, wanto commit serious crime. Still, it’shat smaller group that most con-erns immigration and customsnvestigators.“The card makers don’t carehat they’re making the cards for;hey just want to make money,”aid Toms. “The majority of it isrobably more work-related, butt’s the smaller percentage thatou really need to worry about, thenes that really want to create hav-c.”The length of investigationsrange from acouple of weeksforsmall-scaleoperations tosix months ora yearforlarger ones,depending onthe opera-tion’s com-plexity, Tomssaid. Theaverage takessix months.Tomsdeclined tosay howany agents are assigned to theask.It used to be that locals had toet their fake documents in Losngeles, Toms said. But produc-ion is so easy, he said, mills areroliferating here.Using regular home computers,oms said, forgers can create justbout any government document,merican or otherwise: Perma-ent Resident Cards, Employmentuthorization documents, Socialecurity cards, California driver’sicenses and identification cards,irth certificates and even Mexi-an driver’s licenses.Documents range in price up to200, with the quality of the for-ery usually correlated to therice, Toms said.A stack of fake identificationards from a small number of losed cases at the ICEBakers-eld office show a wide range inuality. It includes Social Securityards obviously made with a type-writer and high-quality driver’slicenses you’d have to compare toreal ones to find faults.“Some of the documents are out-standing, some you can tell from ablock away,” said Toms.Most of the fake driver’s licens-es that Vaughn Cain, an officerwith the California HighwayPatrol, has seen in his 11years inBakersfield have been pretty obvi-ous. He’s only seen three or fourfalse IDsduring that time, he said.When asked if that means a lot of good forgeries are slipping by, hewouldn’t speculate.Juana Bribiesca of the SanJoaquin Farm Labor ContractorsAssociationsaid immigrants arewilling to do what it takes to feedtheir families.“If they need an ID or a SocialSecurity card, they know wherethey can buy them,” Bribiescasaid. “When they need work andthey need to eat, they use tricksand they get the work.”Some of the telltale signs of poorforgeries, according to Toms,include lines where it is clear aninkjet printer was used to print aphoto, or raised surfaces where aphoto was pasted on rather thanprinted with the rest of the card.An obvious giveaway that some-times pops up, he said, is a mis-spelling in the small print on theback of a card.How new a card looks also canbe a tip-off.“You’ve got a 50-year-old manwith a brand-new (Social Securitycard). I’m 30 and mine’s alreadytorn up,” said Nate Odle, a dis-patcher with Superior TemporaryService, a temp agency specializ-ing in such things as trucking andconstruction.He photocopies driver’s licensesand Social Security cards fromaround 10applicants a day and hasseen only a few fake cards in histhree yearswith the company.Last year, Immigration and Cus-toms along with local law enforce-ment agencies busted sixallegedKern County document mills onthe same day. Court documents inone of the cases, involving ManuelQuintino Perezof Lamont, shedlight on how easily these docu-ments are attained.A confidential informant work-ing with investigators approachedPerez, 43,in August 2005seekingto purchase forged documents, thefilings say.Perez said a “white” U.S. Per-manent Resident Card, which isnewer and generally harder tofake, was $100. A “pink” or “rosi-ta” card, the older version, wasonly $50. The informant handedover two photographs and was toldthe cards would be ready in twodays, according to the documents.The informant returned, paidthe $100 for the “white” card, andreceived a U.S. Permanent Resi-dent Card and Social Securitycard, which are traditionally soldas a set. The informant got twomore sets of cards the same way,the filings say.Perez was charged with produc-ing, possessing and transferringfalse identification documents andselling counterfeit Social Securitycards. During the Sept. 29bust,officials seized computers, mediastorage devices and counterfeitdocuments from alleged documentmills at six Kern County homes.At Perez’s residence, investiga-tors found a scanner, printer, heatseal, typewriter, cutting imple-ments, stamp pad, printing paperand a Polaroid camera used to cre-ate false IDs, court documents say.In a plea deal, Perez was sen-tenced to 15 monthsin prison andthree yearsof supervised release.People running document-mak-ing rings can get pretty creative.In 1997, a federal programallowed immigrants to get tempo-rary protected status in the UnitedStates that could lead to perma-nent residency. In 2001, immigra-tion agents arrested a man whoseLamont business created aNicaraguan history for someonewho was not from there, accordingto BernardoMadrid, interimgroup supervisor for BakersfieldICE.The man got delayed birth cer-tificate applications fromNicaragua and filed the paperworkwith theU.S. Immigration andNaturalization Service — the realINS — Madrid said.Another man, from Nicaragua,helped out by using a map on hisrefrigerator to teach people basicfacts about the country so theycould answer questions from animmigration agent, Madrid said.The two men and 237others tryingto benefit from a false Nicaraguanbirth were arrested.Most ended up being deported.From time to time, Madrid said,more people involved in the ploypop up.
ontinued from A1
How to spot afake ID card
Edges of the photographare harsh
, where it was cutout and pasted onto thecard. It should not be feltat all, instead, the photoshould be part of the restof the card. This is true formost identification cards.
Blue Departmentof Justice sea
l doesnot overlap thephoto area.
Detail in Department ofJustice seal
should be aclean image; every arrowshould be distinguishable,the printing easily readableand the overall look shouldbe crisp.
Edges of the card should besmooth
, not feel like they'vebeen cut out with scissors.
THE CALIFORNIAN
Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
“All you needis a computerand you canmake athousand ofthesethings.”
Michael Toms,U.S. Immigrationand CustomsEnforcement
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