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N.C. a destination for fake ID seekers
Posted on Monday, January 03 @ 12:33:25 EST
Topic: licenses for illegal aliens terrorists
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 By Taft Wireback, Staff Writer
News & Record
Topics: Fraud, Crimes, Laws, Security, Licenses, Illegal Immigration
CANDOR â€" To all appearances, Cecil P. Saffle ran a legitimate business as a translator and intermediary for Montgomery County's growing Latino population.
But authorities allege that in a back room of the Main Street Shopping Center, where his offices were, the 60-year-old Saffle carried out the real, money-making end of his operation: making counterfeit IDs for illegal aliens and others who wanted to create false, separate identities.
"Our whole business relies on the proper identification of people," said Montgomery County Sheriff Jeff Jordan. "We kept finding instances where we knew we had bad IDs. They'd use one ID at the jail, then we'd look and find another ID from a previous encounter with the same person."
Saffle was arrested several weeks ago after a sting by the sheriff's department and an undercover agent from the state Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement. Efforts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful.
Saffle's alleged enterprise is just one example of a problem that has made parts of the Piedmont a mecca for seekers of counterfeit identification.
In some cases, illegal aliens use their fake documents to get a North Carolina driver's license, which opens doors for them that some in law enforcement find troubling.
"You can be Osama bin Laden, get a license in the name of Osama Smith and get on an airplane," said Randy Jones, a spokesman with the Alamance County Sheriff's Department. "You can walk into a gun shop with that (driver's license) and buy a semiautomatic shotgun or an AR-15 (semiautomatic rifle)."
In fact, people are coming to the area from as far as New York and Connecticut to get North Carolina licenses with fake IDs.
Guilford County does not seem to have the problems of some other Piedmont counties, however. ALE officials said they have not received any complaints of someone manufacturing counterfeit IDs in Guilford, though that doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Recent investigations by deputies in Alamance and by the state Division of Motor Vehicles found out-of-state license seekers paying from $1,500 to $2,000 each to people who bring them to the Tar Heel State, provide fake IDs and help them get a driver's license.
The Alamance department has been particularly vigilant, citing dozens of people -- mostly Latinos in the country illegally -- for trying to get driver's licenses with fake identifications.
The department has arrested others for counterfeiting the documents used to get those licenses.
The state motor-vehicle agency, which issues drivers' licenses, also is getting more aggressive. The DMV arrested six New York residents in Moore County two months ago in a false-identity scheme.
"They actually tried to bribe the driver's license officer," said Joseph Gardner of the agency's license and theft bureau. "We were able to arrest the person who was bringing them down from New York as well."
In early December, DMV agents also arrested a Yadkin County man for trafficking false Social Security and alien "green" cards. They were tipped to the scam by New York City police after detectives in that city arrested a group of people dealing in stolen property, all of whom apparently lived in New York but had cars with North Carolina tags.
"We were just following up on a vehicle registered improperly," Gardner said of the Yadkin arrest. "But when we got there, we also were able to find forged ID cards."
The motor-vehicle agency has tightened its requirements by attempting to verify each applicant's Social Security number with the federal government before issuing a license.
The agency also is training its examiners in how to detect counterfeit documents more effectively, Gardner said.
As they helped DMV crack down on fraud, Alamance deputies were surprised by how often they were summoned to investigate counterfeit documents and at how brazen the users of fake IDs had become.
One day, Jones said, a deputy decided to try a new technique when he was sent to the DMV office.
"The deputy walked in and said, 'All illegal aliens with false IDs, please step forward,' Six people did," Jones said. "They thought we had a special line for people with fake IDs. It sounds like a Chevy Chase movie, but it really happened."
Saffle's alleged counterfeiting in Candor might have gained impetus from the DMV's tighter restrictions on applicants for driver's licenses, which limited the variety of IDs the agency would accept from foreigners.
"That drove up demand for immigration cards," said ALE agent Chris Watkins, who helped Jordan's department with the investigation.
Saffle told officers that he had been making false documents for about eight months, investigators say.
When sheriff's deputies and the ALE officers searched Saffle's offices, they found stacks of apparently official, blank immigration cards, including magnetic strips the federal government has added relatively recently, Jordan said.
"It leads you to believe that anything could be going on," he said. "Is there someone inside (the federal government) sending it to him? Was it someone inside this country or outside? "
Authorities think that many of Saffle's clients simply used their fake identities to get jobs. But there is no way of knowing how many cards were forged, who got them all or what they were used for, said ALE's Watkins.
In one case, investigators found that a woman was using one of her fake identities to work at a legitimate job and another to draw welfare payments. It cost the county thousands of dollars, Jordan said.
Saffle, who worked periodically at the local courthouse as a translator, had been a suspect for weeks, Jordan said. But the Montgomery department did not have an undercover agent who could penetrate the operation until ALE stepped in, he said.
On Nov. 30, a state undercover agent masquerading as an illegal alien allegedly paid Saffle more than $150 for a fake green card. The next day, officers arrested the Candor man, who told them he gained fluency in Spanish by doing missionary work in Latin America.
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| Article Rating | Average Score: 4.19
Votes: 26
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Re: N.C. a destination for fake ID seekers (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, January 03 @ 12:48:46 EST | | The "Read Original Article" link leads to a different article. This should be fixed ASAP. |
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Re: N.C. a destination for fake ID seekers (Score: 1)
by Charlesoakisland on Monday, January 03 @ 21:50:43 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) | | This burns me up. I just wonder how many he sold before he was busted. |
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