Fraud bust nets 12 in Fort Pierce
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By WILL GREENLEE
will.greenlee@scripps.com
June 7, 2007
FORT PIERCE — A request from one state agency to another to help find a wanted person uncovered more than 100 people allegedly using a single Social Security number and netted at least 12 arrests locally Tuesday, according to arrest reports and a state official.
Several additional arrests came in Orlando, West Palm Beach and other locations, and Maj. Jeff Korte of the Division of Insurance Fraud anticipated more arrests.


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The charge — a felony — is presenting a false Social Security number/card, and the 12 arrested locally all worked for a business identified as Bates Plants. Many admitted being in the country illegally and buying Social Security cards for up to $800 in Fort Pierce or West Palm Beach, though the amount typically was less than $100.
Korte said his investigators more or less stumbled onto the case after the state Department of Environmental Protection asked for help in tracking down someone with a warrant.

"We ran the Social Security number on that subject, and that subject through the State of Florida Department of Revenue unemployment tax database," Korte said. "When we ran the Social Security number ... it came back that that number was assigned to 115 different people statewide from Miami to Jacksonville."

He said employers were reporting unemployment tax on the wages for that number to 115 different people.

Korte said the most recent database update came a few months ago, and investigators narrowed the list of people to be targeted to about 40 they were relatively sure they could find.

"We noticed in all the different quarters that some would drop off the list. Some would come; they'd disappear; you wouldn't see them again," he said.

Korte said he didn't think there would be many more arrests in St. Lucie County.

In at least one case, investigators discovered other people using different Social Security numbers.

"We start running checks on some of the other employees that are there when we get there to make the arrest; we're finding out those numbers don't belong to them either, and they're different numbers," Korte said. "What we're finding ... is that there's a place in St. Lucie County that for $60 you can buy one.

"They give you a Social Security number and a card with your name on it," he said.

Investigators took statements from Christina Bates of Bates Plants, who indicated most of the workers were hired in October.

Arrested locally were Gilber Rojas, Jose Luis, Adrian Bravo, Esther Delgado, Maria Garcia, Rosa Guillen-Domingquez, Rudy Lopez-Carillo, Eduardo Mancilla-Perez, Juan Roblero, Rocio Velasquez, Delia Sanchez-Cordobo, and Fernando Velazquez. No further information was available.


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