Thread: Caught: How agents sold an illegal dream

Caught: How agents sold an illegal dream


By Liz Mineo, Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News
New! Sun Sep 16, 2007, 12:18 AM EDT


When Wirlei Goncalves Dias, an illegal immigrant from Brazil, heard an immigration agent was selling genuine green cards for $9,000 and employment authorization cards for $4,000 out of a Framingham apartment, he didn't think twice.

Dias, 31, who came to the United States in 1997, met with the agent several times, at Chili's restaurant on Rte. 9, at a Dunkin' Donuts on Cochituate Road, and at an apartment in the former Edgewater Hills complex, to buy the documents he hoped were going to make his life easier.

Green cards and employment authorization cards allow those who have them to work in the U.S. legally and re-enter the country, and are highly coveted by illegal immigrants.

Dias, who worked as a dishwasher and cook before he started a company called "Peter's Painting Co.," received an employment authorization card in December 2006 from the agent. And though he knew it was a document obtained illegally, he hoped it would help him leave behind his life as an illegal immigrant.

It was quite the opposite.

The man who sold the documents to Dias was an undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent posing as a corrupt official in an 11-month ICE crackdown on document fraud in Greater Boston, MetroWest, Milford and the Waltham area.

The region has been the hotbed for enforcement against illegal immigrants with Milford becoming more stringent in its attempt to crack down on illegal apartments often overcrowded with recent arrivals. Police in Framingham, Milford and Waltham have also arrested more people driving without a license, who are often illegal immigrants, in the past two years.

The ICE sting began in July 2006 and ended early last month with the arrest of 27 Brazilians in a bus at a supermarket parking lot in Chelsea. All of them were in the country illegally and bought or attempted to buy documents from the undercover agent, federal authorities have said.

Seven of the 27 have been charged criminally with one felony count of conspiracy to possess identification documents with the intent to defraud the United States. The others face no criminal charges and instead will be administratively processed for deportation.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office would not comment on why some were charged and others were not. However, the affidavits in the case show that nearly all who met with the undercover agent in the hidden-camera equipped apartment and purchased documents for themselves and other illegal immigrants were the ones charged.

Dias is one of those facing criminal charges and is to be sentenced Oct. 10 in U.S. District Court in Boston. On Monday, Dias, wearing prison garb and shackles around his feet, pleaded guilty before federal Judge Joseph Tauro. According to Dias' lawyer, Peter Krupp, Dias pleaded guilty to reduce his time in jail and speed up his deportation. Challenging the operation as "entrapment" would have taken too long and was not in the best interest of his client, Krupp said.

"Wirlei has been here for many years and worked in different jobs for people who knew he was here illegally," said Krupp. "He worked very hard without getting into trouble. The government tangled him into something too tempting to pass up. The temptation was too great for him."

And so it was for many others.

The others

Besides Dias, immigration officials arrested his brother Walace Dias Goncalves and his sister Creone Angelina Dias, both of whom he brought to meet with the agent. Others arrested were Fabio Santonione Almeida, Marcos Rodrigues Da Silva, Welton Ribeiro Damaceno and Fabricio Dutra Lopes. Affidavits on the seven do not provide their addresses, however, an ICE spokesman said three of the seven arrested are from Wayland, one is from Framingham, one is from Brighton, one from Everett and one from Coral Gables, Fla. All seven face the same felony charge criminal charge to which Wirlei Goncalves Dias pleaded guilty.

However, at last week's hearing, Tauro ruled the charge was a misdemeanor.

The Daily News interviewed two Brazilians who were detained at the bus in Chelsea and were later released. Their tales highlight what illegal immigrants do to become legal through illegal means.

"It was desperation," said the 36-year-old man who identified himself as Cairo. "I wanted to be legal no matter what. I thought that I could become legal by buying a legal document. I wanted to do something wrong to do something right in the end, to be legal."

Cairo, a former chemical engineer in Brazil who until recently worked at a cleaning company, said his desperation made him fall for the ruse. He gave $14,000 to the agent to purchase the two documents he thought were going to make him free. He went to Chelsea because the agent had told him he was going to receive his work authorization card.

In total, the agent collected $161,000 from the immigrants buying the documents for themselves and others, according to court documents. ICE spokesman Mike Gilhooley said the money will go into the ICE asset forfeiture fund and used for criminal investigations.

"I was suspicious," said Cairo in his native Portuguese at his Everett home. "But I wanted so much to live a life as a legal person that I swallowed my doubts. When I entered the bus in Chelsea, I felt I was falling into a hole. But I wanted to believe it was the beginning of a new life."

Cairo will have to start a new life in Brazil. An immigration judge has allowed him to leave the country voluntarily, but he must leave by February 2008.

A 25-year-old woman from Woburn has yet to face deportation proceedings, but knows eventually she will be sent back home. The woman, who didn't want to give her name, also took part in the scheme. She paid $9,000 for her work authorization card, which she received in March 2007 from the undercover agent.

With that document, she applied for a Social Security card and registered for a Massachusetts driver's license. Her driver's license shows the woman beaming.

"I was so happy," she said. "I thought I was fixed for life."

Instead, she will have to start all over again once she is sent back to Brazil, the country she left five years ago. She said she fell for the scheme because she wanted to live like a regular person.

"I wanted to be a citizen, a person with documents," she said. "Now, I wish I could go back in time and stay the way I was."

Of the sting, she said it was a "coward act."

"It was like offering water to people in the desert," she said. "They were playing with people's dreams, people's lives."

The operation

Court records detail how ICE agents conducted the operation, with the goal of finding illegal immigrants willing to buy genuine cards through fraud.

First, agents spread the word in the Brazilian community that valid documents could be obtained from a Portuguese-speaking agent with connections to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Then, they established an undercover apartment in Framingham to meet with those who wanted to buy the documents.

Court papers don't give the specific location of the place, but two Brazilians who were arrested and released told the Daily News they met the undercover agent at the former Edgewater Hills apartment complex on Rte. 9, now called Jefferson Hills.

pdf icon PDF: Read the ICE agent's affidavit
http://util.wickedlocal.com/s/pdf/affidavit.pdf


The ruse began around July 2006, and over the months it drew Brazilians from Framingham, Malden, Woburn and Everett. They all came to the Framingham apartment to meet with the undercover agent, who was known as "Jose."

At the apartment, the agent took fingerprints, collected money and information to fill out the forms to apply for employment authorization cards and green cards. In his dealings with his "clients," the undercover agent told them the documents they were purchasing were genuine, but, he reportedly told them the transaction was illegal.

According to the affidavit against Dias, he contacted the agent and met with him directly, bypassing Fabio Santonione Almeida of Everett, who was the middle man between the agent and several customers.

The ninth child of a farmer and a housewife, Dias grew up poor in Brazil, said Krupp, Dias's lawyer. Dias, who worked at the family farm when he was 11 and couldn't finish high school, came here to better his life, the lawyer said.

In a November 2006 meeting, Dias told the agent he owned a painting company and knew at least 20 people who wanted genuine green cards. Over the course of the operation, Dias brought seven customers to meet with the agent.

The agent stalled Dias for several months but in June, he produced documents for him and three other people to prevent Dias from becoming suspicious. Nearly two months after he received his work authorization card, Dias was arrested, and his life as an illegal immigrant in hiding came to an end.

Liz Mineo can be reached at 508-626-3825 or lmineo@cnc.com

http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x775326059

"I wanted to be legal no matter what. I thought that I could become legal by buying a legal document. I wanted to do something wrong to do something right in the end, to be legal."

Hmmm.......I guess this guy wasn't in America long enough to hear "two wrongs don't make a right." You can't enter illegally and then illegally purchase a document to become legal - it doesn't work that way. Purchasing a legal document through illegal means doesn't erase the fact that you're not eligible for the document.

Cairo, a former chemical engineer in Brazil who until recently worked at a cleaning company, said his desperation made him fall for the ruse. He gave $14,000 to the agent to purchase the two documents.....


A 25-year-old woman from Woburn has yet to face deportation proceedings, but knows eventually she will be sent back home. The woman, who didn't want to give her name, also took part in the scheme. She paid $9,000 for her work authorization card


In total, the agent collected $161,000 from the immigrants buying the documents for themselves and others,...

I guess when one doesn't have to worry with such nagging little things like TAXES, Paying for HEALTHCARE, FOOD, CAR INSURANCE...one could afford to fork over 4,000, 9,000, 14,000 or WHATEVER amount without a second thought. Must be nice.

Cairo will have to start a new life in Brazil. An immigration judge has allowed him to leave the country voluntarily, but he must leave by February 2008.

Catch and release.

Reckon he will still be here come next March???