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Nine charged in phony IDs case

CSDL, Tue, 05/25/2010 - 03:00


Web Posted: 05/25/2010 12:00 CDT
San Antonio Express-News
 

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have taken down a ring accused of providing fake identities for hundreds of people in San Antonio and Austin.

 
After six months of investigation, ICE agents charged nine people in the case, and seven have been arrested. The other two, one of whom is one of the ringleaders, remain at large.
At a hearing in federal court Monday in San Antonio for one of the suspects, ICE agent Timothy McElligott testified about a series of raids in San Antonio and Austin that turned up document-making equipment, blank identity cards stock and Social Security cards.
The ring was “distributing and selling drivers' licenses from different states, identity documents and immigration-related documents like Social Security cards and green cards,” said Jerry Robinette, special agent in charge of ICE in San Antonio, whose territory includes Austin and stretches to the Rio Grande Valley.
The fakes also included drivers' licenses from other countries, such as Honduras, McElligott testified.
All the suspects are either Mexican nationals or undocumented immigrants, according to ICE.
The documents generally sold for $100 each, agents found. An undercover agent bought a fake green card, Social Security card and Texas driver's license during the probe.
McElligott testified that suspect Johnnys Amilca Raudales Moncada admitted to being one of the sellers of the counterfeit documents, though the suspect argued at Monday's hearing that he did not participate. The suspect was one of two men found when agents served a search warrant at an apartment in the 9200 block of North Plaza in Austin.
Investigators believe the ring was led in San Antonio by Gregory Hernandez Trolle and in Austin by a man tentatively identified as Carlos Saldaña. Trolle is in custody without bond and waived his preliminary and bail hearing, along with five of the other suspects, leaving Amilca Raudales Moncada as the lone suspect to contest the agents' evidence.

Hernandez, whose apartment in the 10300 block of Sahara in San Antonio was raided May 12, admitted to agents that he manufactured “at least 1,000” counterfeit IDs in the past four months, McElligott testified.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/nine_charged_inphony_ids_case_94800264.html