NY authorities crack down on peddling of false identification
By COLLEEN LONG

Associated Press Writer

10:52 AM EDT, October 27, 2007

NEW YORK

Twenty-year-old Michael Kesselman came to midtown Manhattan hunting for a place to buy a fake ID, and said it took him about an hour.

He walked into a shop near Madison Square Garden that advertised passport photos, filled out a form with a fake name, address and birthday, plunked down $25 and was presented with a Pennsylvania resident's card that said he was 22.

Kesselman, who is from New York, said he wasn't asked to provide any proof that his information was truthful. The fine print on the card _ a notice that it was a nongovernment issued ID _ was so fine that it was nearly impossible to tell it wasn't real.

"If you go want to go to Manhattan to get a fake ID, it doesn't take long to find a place. There are stores all over the city," said Kesselman, who bought the card as part of an effort by a state senator to expose how easy it is to get a fake ID in the city.

A few miles away in the Jackson Heights sections of Queens, $50 can buy you a fake driver's license that shows you're a legal resident of the U.S., regardless of your actual age and immigration status.

The IDs are being bought by both teenagers eager to hit the bars and illegal immigrants. The widespread availability of such documents has drawn the attention of authorities in recent weeks as they step up efforts to crack down on the practice.

Kesselman's ID is technically legal. According to state law, it's illegal for a minor to use such a card to buy alcohol, but lawful for a merchant to sell a "novelty" ID, as long as it contains a disclaimer that it is not an official government ID. The problem is, authorities said, many times the fine print is too fine to notice.

There were 1,057 citations for selling alcohol to a minor in 2006 in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County, according to the New York State Liquor Authority's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. So far this year there have been about 820 citations.

If an establishment is caught selling alcohol to minors, it faces fines and may lose its liquor license. And if a minor driving drunk causes an accident, or is injured at a bar, or gets into a fight, the establishment can be held civilly liable under the state's so-called Dram Shop Act.

State Sen. Jeff Klein wants to extend the law to include the shops that sell novelty IDs. Kesselman was an intern in Klein's office over the summer when he took part in the ID sting.

"In a dark bar or a busy convenience store, there's no way to tell that these things are fake," he said. "Underage drinking is happening more and more. The best way to curb this is to hit them in the pocketbooks."

Klein said the cards are an obvious fraud.

"There's no reason to purchase these unless you're looking to do something against the law," Klein said.

Undocumented immigrants scrambling for a way to stay in the U.S. sometimes pay for fake government papers, and the place to go, prosecutors say, is Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, where peddlers sell Social Security numbers amid the eclectic restaurants and bodegas.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown has called Jackson Heights the "the epicenter of such fraudulent activity on the East Coast."

Authorities recently broke up two counterfeit rings there that sold millions of dollars worth of fraudulent driver's licenses, Social Security numbers and passports throughout the country. Prosecutors said the two groups were fed fraudulent documents by the same Los Angeles supplier. The documents included blank permanent resident cards embossed with Department of Justice seals.

The operations can be brazen. Hawkers solicit clients off the street, usually by saying the word "social," as if they were peddling handbags or jewelry, authorities said.

Others collect the money _ a Social Security card costs about $40, driver's license $50 and resident alien card around $60. Still others quickly prepare the documents, officials said. Prosecutors said a sale can be completed in about an hour.

Hundreds of people were arrested recently for having the false documents, and at least 41 were indicted on various charges including enterprise corruption, forgery, conspiracy and criminal possession of forgery devices.

But authorities say problem is ongoing. There's a constant demand for documents, even though advocacy groups and law enforcement agencies encourage immigrants to steer clear of such enterprises.

In 2005 in the same neighborhood, 21 people were charged with operating a million-dollar enterprise that supplied documents to illegal immigrants.

"Once you stop one group, another takes its place," said District Attorney spokesman Kevin Ryan.

Copyright © 2007, The Associated Press

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