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Posted on Mon, Jun. 19, 2006



Mexico arrests man wanted in U.S. for distributing fake documents

OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press

MONTERREY, Mexico - Mexican authorities have arrested the leader of a wide-reaching organization that allegedly made and distributed forged immigration and identification documents in numerous U.S. cities, U.S. officials said Monday.

Pedro Castorena, 42, was arrested Saturday in the western city of Guadalajara while carrying two counterfeit Mexican identification documents that bore his photograph but an assumed name, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said in a statement.

Castorena's arrest "deals a serious blow to one of the largest fraudulent document organizations in the United States," said Julie Myers, the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Castorena, one of ICE's most wanted fugitives, allegedly heads a large criminal organization involved in making and distributing counterfeit documents, including resident alien cards, social security cards, Mexican Matricula Consular ID Cards, driver's licenses and identity documents from various states of Mexico and the United States.

The documents were distributed in several U.S. states, including California, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, Nebraska, Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado, ICE said.

Castorena was indicted in Denver in July on charges of conspiracy, fraud, misuse of visas and money laundering. In May, ICE agents in Mexico located Castorena with the help of Mexican federal agents and state police in Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located.

U.S. authorities say Castorena ran his organization like a franchise-style company with cells in more than a dozen cities across the United States and with cell leaders paying a "franchise fee" to operate the business.

The investigation that led to Castorena's capture began in 2000 when U.S. federal officials began looking into the sale and distribution of counterfeit identity documents in Denver.

In 2004, a former member of the organization who had served a three-year federal prison sentence agreed to work with U.S. investigators as an informant. The man was accepted back into the organization and returned to Denver, where he recorded numerous telephone conversations with Castorena and others as they went about setting up a new cell in Glendale, Colorado, ICE said.

Since the investigation began, U.S. authorities have arrested several people linked to Castorena and seized counterfeit identity document laboratories and tens of thousands of blank counterfeit identity documents, ICE said.

Castorena's organization was also investigated in the late 1980s in Los Angeles and other cities and in 1994 Castorena and several of his family members, including his brothers Alfonso and Francisco Castorena, were indicted in San Antonio for making and selling false resident alien and social security cards throughout the United States, ICE said.

Castorena fled to Mexico and avoided arrest on that indictment, which was dismissed in October. His brothers, however, were arrested in Los Angeles and pleaded guilty to a felony offense. They served a short prison sentence and were eventually deported to Mexico.

Mexican authorities took Castorena to Mexico City, where he's waiting extradition to the United States.

ON THE NET

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: http://www.ice.gov






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