Thread: BMV Launches Investigation Into Loopholes

(WSBT) The head of Indiana's Bureau of Motor Vehicles is promising a top to bottom review of the agency's computer system.

This comes after a South Bend BMV worker found a loophole and was able to sell bogus IDs for cash inside the Western Avenue License Branch, using other people's Social Security numbers.

And she wasn't the first. This is just another black eye on an already battered state BMV.

Two years ago, when Mitch Daniels was running for governor, he had harsh words to say about the State Bureau of Motor Vehicles and its leadership.

“The Bureau of Motor Vehicles has become a shopping mart for illegal aliens seeking phony identification,” Daniels claimed in a debate before he was elected.

Earlier that year, federal authorities arrested 30 people involved in a fraud ring including BMV employees.

Two years later comes more proof that there is still work to be done.

Walking out of court this week in South Bend, Julian Sanchez told supporters she knows she did wrong, but added that she did it for her people.

Police say the 28-year-old BMV worker took hundreds of dollars in cash in exchange for making fake IDs thanks to a loophole in the agency’s computer system.

“These were people that were not United States citizens," according to Detective Dominic Zultanski of the South Bend Police Department. "They did not have social security numbers of their own.”

Investigators say she used non-existent social security numbers as well as other people’s social security numbers and those of the dead.

And her arrest comes one month after the arrest of another BMV worker who was charged in Indianapolis for forging documents, including driver’s licenses and ID cards, using another loophole.

“{Governor Mitch Daniels} has a clear, zero-tolerance policy on this kind of thing,” said BMV Commissioner Ron Stiver on Wednesday. “We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The BMV says it's located and closed the loopholes from those past two incidents, and launched a complete investigation into its computer system to find anymore. Police say even though the local employee used other people's social security numbers, they don't believe anyone's personal information was compromised.

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/4655466.html

A South Bend BMV worker will head to court Monday on 116 counts of fraud and forgery.

Police arrested Julian Sanchez on Thursday; investigators say she was using her position at the Western Avenue branch for personal gain.

Investigators won’t go into specific details because the St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office is still working on formal charges. South Bend officers got a tip that Sanchez was breaking the law -- and BMV investigators worked with police.

“Personnel at that branch also cooperated, and what they essentially had to do, it was sort of a white collar crime investigation,” said Capt. Phil Trent of the South Bend Police Department. “It was sort of a large scale audit of their records had to be performed.”

Sanchez worked at that branch since May. She'll make her first court appearance Monday; that's when she'll hear the charges against her.

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