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Nine defendants used the stolen identities of U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico -- along with fake Puerto Rico driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, debit cards and birth certificates -- to obtain the licenses from motor vehicle agencies in Jersey City and North Bergen, Acting New Jersey Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck said.
They used those licenses to finance, title or transfer titles to 26 motor vehicles, a boat and two jet skis, Bruck said.
After buying a vehicle on credit, the defendants “washed” the title by creating a false lien release or fraudulent title indicating there was no lien on the vehicle, the attorney general said.
The fake document was “used to obtain a clean title in another state,” he said.
“That clean title was then used to transfer ownership to another individual, often within the conspiracy, allowing the vehicle to be shipped overseas,” Bruck said.
Authorities began investigating after the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission alerted Bruck’s office to the fraudulently-obtained driver’s licenses, the attorney general said.
Ten vehicles were recovered in the U.S., but others were shipped overseas – seven of them to the Dominican Republic, he said.
Charged in an indictment returned by a state grand jury in Trenton are:
- Reyfy Gonzalez, 33, of Cliffside Park, NJ;
- Taina G. Perez, 28, of Methuen, MA;
- Jose M. Irizarry, 45, of New Haven, CT;
- Ricardo Acevedo, 50, of Paterson, NJ;
- Andy A. Mazara, 28, of Lawrence, MA;
- Tirson Ruiz, 51, of Lawrence, MA;
- Alvaro J. Alvarez-Capio, 46, of Lowell, MA;
- Willie A. Samuel-Baldayaquez, 39, of Newark, NJ;
- Guillermo Alex Cruz-Guerrero, 43, of Ohio.
Charged included conspiracy, receiving stolen property, tampering with public records or information, ID theft, theft by deception, false impersonation.
The indictment is posted here: Operation Export Indictment
Irizarry and Acevedo are in federal custody in Massachusetts; Mazara, Samuel-Baldayaquez and Cruz-Guerrero are in federal custody in Ohio; and Ruiz was previously deported.
The remaining defendants were released pending trial.
The indictment returned Friday was obtained during an investigation by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice’s Specialized Crimes Bureau dubbed “Operation Export.”
“By diligently investigating cases of document fraud related to New Jersey digital driver’s licenses, we frequently uncover larger criminal schemes involving identity theft and financial fraud,” Bruck said.
Federal law enforcement agencies in New Jersey and other states “uncovered the same or similar criminal activity and are pursuing charges against several of the defendants,” the attorney general said.
The U.S. Attorneys’ offices for the District of Massachusetts and Northern District of Ohio have brought charges following an investigation by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations’ Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force, he said.
Bruck said his office “has worked cooperatively with the federal agencies.”
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