Prosecutors pursue fraud ring with "unprecedented" violence

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Neil MacBride, gestures during a news conference on Feb.24 about the indictment of those allegedly involved in a false document ring.
EnlargeCloseBy Steve Helber, AP
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Neil MacBride, gestures during a news conference on Feb.24 about the indictment of those allegedly involved in a false document ring.

A small army of enforcers allegedly carried out savage beatings of rivals, some of whom were bound and gagged prior to assaults that left at least one dead. Two years ago, two of Millan's men allegedly stuck the barrel of a semi-automatic handgun into a rival's mouth as a "warning," prosecutors say, for encroaching on company turf.

Misconduct or poor performance by members of Millan's own operation also did not go unpunished, according to federal court documents. One, accused of stealing from the organization, allegedly was beaten during a conference call with the group's top lieutenants in a dramatic show of force to discourage misbehavior.

The brutal conduct of Millan's operation, outlined in federal court papers late last month, bears all the hallmarks of international drug and gun trafficking cartels. But prosecutors say Millan's group dealt in a much more benign product rarely linked to such startling violence: Phony identification cards.

Millan and an accused top associate are scheduled to appear Tuesday in a Richmond, Va., federal courtroom. The 28-year-old illegal immigrant, also known as "El Muerto" (The Dead One), is charged with managing a far-reaching document fraud business with cells in 19 cities and 11 states that funneled at least $1 million to its top leaders in Mexico. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years to life in prison if convicted.

The entire business, court documents say, catered to emerging illegal immigrant communities throughout the country. The illegal immigrants paid $150 to $200 for fake Social Security numbers, U.S. residency cards and driver's licenses.

Neil MacBride, the top federal prosecutor in eastern Virginia who is overseeing the case, says the group is the subject of one of the largest document fraud prosecutions in recent U.S. history. But MacBride adds in an interview that the most striking aspect of this type of case is the "unprecedented level of extreme violence" that the group allegedly used against its competitors and its own employees.

"We've never seen anything like this," MacBride says, adding that the enterprise functioned in some ways like a "multinational corporation," with Millan serving as the chief executive of U.S. operations.

"Where they found competition, they eliminated them," MacBride says.

Hot commodities
Attorney Paul Gill, who is representing Millan, declined to comment, except to say that his client has pleaded not guilty to the conspiracy charges.

Millan is not charged with the violence — kidnapping, assaults and murder — that prosecutors say was an integral aspect of the business. MacBride did not elaborate on the charging decisions.

But Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Deputy Assistant Director James Spero says the group's alleged operations outlined in last month's indictment make clear that Millan did not "object to using violence as a way of doing business."

Phony documents are hot commodities in immigrant communities. Workers are vying for a limited number of jobs in a down economy, and employers are facing sanctions for hiring undocumented labor. As a result, Spero says, phony document vendors are rushing to meet the demand.

Nationally, arrests related to document fraud increased last year to 1,503 from 1,243 in 2009, according to ICE records.

Spero says that as the numbers rise, investigators are encountering more aggressive vendors who increasingly are protecting their markets, including through physical intimidation or violence. During the last three months of 2010, federal agents probing fraud rings recorded 379 criminal arrests and 310 immigration-related arrests, while recovering 20 firearms, a mix of rifles and handguns.

Yet none of the groups' tactics rivaled the alleged brutality of Millan's operation.

"Although we have seen violence in the past," Spero says, "what stood out here was (the group's) willingness to use violence to control and manage their own organization."

Turf battle
Starting roughly in 2008, the group established footholds in 19 cities, including Raleigh, N.C., and Little Rock, court documents say. Locations were selected strategically to avoid the largest law enforcement agencies and to offer access to immigrant communities.

Designated "managers" in each city allegedly oversaw document production and the activities of a network of "runners," who worked the streets recruiting customers.

At the top of the organization, Millan "regularly corresponded with cell leaders," managed inventory, reviewed "bi-weekly sales reports" and monitored the competition in each market, the court papers say.

In perhaps the most chilling episode of violence described in the documents, prosecutors allege that Millan's Little Rock manager — Edy Oliverez-Jiminez, 24, aka "Jesus" — identified two rivals encroaching on the Little Rock market.

The men, one identified by prosecutors only by the initials "P.R.," were lured to an abandoned trailer house last July. Oliverez-Jiminez and other unnamed co-conspirators allegedly bound the victims' hands, feet, mouth and eyes, then badly beat them, court papers say.

P.R. was left bound on the floor and later died of his injuries, the documents say.

Oliverez-Jiminez, who is charged with the murder, faces a possible death penalty if convicted. His attorney, Paul Gregorio, says his client will plead not guilty. He also is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.

Gregorio declined to comment on the specific allegations in the documents, but he suggested that the prosecution had only outlined one side of the story.

"The theory and the evidence," Gregorio says, "sometimes don't always mesh."

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