Three Chicago immigrants are facing felony charges for allegedly obtaining false identification documents and selling them to other immigrants in order to get jobs.
Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart said Tuesday that the suspects were Facundo Donato Meneses Garcia, 51, Francisco Javier Otero-Rozas, 42, and Kenneth Jareth Ulloa-Rodriguez, 19. announced charges against.
LR: Francisco Otero-Rozas, Kenneth Ulloa-Rodriguez, Facundo Meneses-Garcia. (Cook County Sheriff)
Deputies arrested three men last Wednesday after executing a search warrant on a resident in the 2700 block of South Hamlin Avenue in Chicago.
Officers recovered nearly 500 fake ID cards, including Social Security cards, green cards, and driver’s licenses, as well as more than $7,200 in cash and approximately 40 grams of suspected methamphetamine at the residence.
Investigators determined that the three men took advantage of the migrants’ desperation to find work and recruited them to steal certain goods. This product was exchanged for fake IDs or sold for cash, which was then used to purchase fraudulent IDs.
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The arrests come amid a spike in retail thefts involving immigrants in downtown Chicago. Most of the immigrants were from Venezuela, arriving by bus from Texas.
One of the retail thefts earlier this month tipped off police officers to the illegal activity. Based on that information, sheriff’s deputies began a sting operation in which they purchased multiple fake IDs from the defendants. Officers then executed a search warrant on the residence.
Officers recovered 481 fake ID cards at the man’s residence. (Cook County Sheriff)
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said the case highlights what happens when you have “desperate people who have little legal ability to help themselves.”
“People will take advantage of them,” he says.
The three appeared in the George N. Layton Criminal Court building last Friday, where the presiding judge ordered them to participate in the presiding judge’s pretrial electronic monitoring program.
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The investigation is ongoing and additional charges may be filed pending test results on the recovered drug suspects, the sheriff’s office said.
