(02-1 06:54 PST REDWOOD CITY -- A Redwood City man has been charged in federal court with impersonating a federal agent for allegedly victimizing a family that was threatened with jail and deportation for immigration fraud unless they paid $50,000, court records show.


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Frank Salvador Solorza, 45, was arrested Feb. 10 after he pedaled up to a San Mateo County home on a bicycle - while dressed in a clown suit - and grabbed a briefcase that he believed contained the money, authorities said.

Solorza claimed that three gang members put him up to the scam, in which six members of a family received phone calls and letters purportedly from U.S. immigration officials, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The letters, dated Dec. 22, said that the family members had provided false information in their applications for permanent residence. But if they paid $50,000, "your papers will be good forever" and they wouldn't be deported to Mexico, Special Agent Dennis Scheffel of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote in the affidavit.

On Feb. 2, some family members were visited at their homes by a man who brought a tape recorder and played a message that discussed the same issues raised in the letters, Scheffel wrote.

Over the next week, one alleged victim also received phone calls with instructions on how to hand over the money. Some of the calls were monitored or recorded by agents, the affidavit said.

The alleged victims said they believed Solorza, a cousin, was responsible, and that "they recall Solorza oddly asking them, as recent as two weeks ago, about when their 'green cards' were going to expire," Scheffel wrote.

Agents confirmed through phone records that the subscriber of the cell phone that made the calls was Solorza's wife, Scheffel said.

The family was told in one call that a man in a clown suit and riding a small bicycle would be coming to pick up the money. After Solorza's arrest, agents found in his possession the cell phone and receipts from the House of Humor costume store in Redwood City.

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.


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