Thread: Fake Driver's Licenses in Fla

Down here illegals don't care. Some buy those fake driver's licenses and others drive without one. We caught a guy in Miami Lakes who had a thirty year old driver's license from Columbia which was expired.

What is sad is that they are more concerned about fake driver's licenses than fake Social Security Cards.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... b01_layout


Fake driver's licenses popping up in Palm Beach County
'International' permits increasingly common
By Jerome Burdi

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

November 24, 2007

Tighter security measures have made it tougher for felons and undocumented immigrants to fraudulently obtain driver's licenses. Increasingly, many are turning to bogus "international driver's licenses" that are easily purchased at storefronts and on the Internet.

Security crackdowns after the 9-11 attacks gave birth to the new business, police say.

Police departments have been educating their officers on the phony licenses and trying to get them off the street.

"People have gotten into pretty serious accidents claiming that those are good," Delray Beach traffic homicide Investigator Fred Glass said.

On Oct. 30, Delray Beach police confiscated two of the "international driver's licenses." One was seized after a crash involving a driver with an expired Brazilian driver's license. Another crash that same day involved a Honduran woman who never had a driver's license — but had an "international" one. She told police she thought the license was authentic.

Americans who have had their licenses revoked or suspended also buy the "international driver's licenses" and sometimes get away with using them, police say. The "international driving documents" look official and have fooled police officers.

"I'm embarrassed to say we had officers that have written tickets on these, not knowing that they're not real driver's licenses," Glass said.

Police can't directly check driving histories from foreign driver's licenses and must request records through the International Criminal Police Organization.

Merchants selling the "international driver's licenses" say they are merely translations of other countries' licenses, police said. This month, there was a $99 "international driver's license" sale, advertised in Spanish, at Check Cashing Stop across the street from the Lake Worth Police Department. Store officials could not be reached, despite attempts by phone.

In many cases, lack of education on the part of the buyer and misrepresentation by the seller are what keeps the "licenses" in circulation, police say.

Police officers depend on booklets put out by beer companies identifying what different licenses throughout the country look like and some common foreign ones such as Mexican and Honduran, Lake Worth police Officer Earl Bakke said.

"They are presenting the international driver's license as a driver's license," Bakke said. "There's different variations of them. They usually do not have their country's driver's license."

The Federal Trade Commission issued a consumer alert in 2003 about the fake licenses, then being sold for $65 to $350. FTC officials said they had some enforcement success with stings across the country, but that storefront and Internet sales remain a problem.

"They're putting people on the roads that don't have any insurance and shouldn't be driving," said FTC staff attorney Lemuel Dowdy.

Authentic international driving permits translate a person's license into 10 languages. They were authorized in 1949 in the United Nations Convention on Road Traffic. The permits, recognized in more than 150 nations, must be issued by one's government and accompanied by a driver's license.

The American Automobile Association and the American Automobile Touring Alliance issue the international permits for about $15 for Americans traveling abroad. AAA Auto Club South, which covers Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, issues about 4,000 international driving permits per month, spokeswoman Ronna Clark said.

Besides driving, a fake driver's license also opens the door to fraud.

"A driver's license opens the world to everybody," Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Mike Sheehan said.

Federal authorities broke up a Manhattan crime ring in August that used fake driver's licenses and other identification to obtain loans and credit cards totaling about $10 million.

Online, Philadelphia-based International Automobile Driver's Center offers "international driving documents" with some basic information, a photo, and $75 for next-day delivery, according to the application. International Automobile Driver's Center also could not be reached for comment, despite attempts by phone.

"These are fraudulent enterprises," Dowdy said. "They're selling a worthless document. They're selling a document that encourages the buyer to break the law."

Duplicate.
Please refer further comments to:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-91672-earl.html+bakke