Posted on 07/23/2008 4:06:09 PM PDT by SJackson
The Castorena Family Organization is a large-scale criminal organization with more than 100 key members who oversee cells of 10 to 20 individuals in cities across the United States, according to public court documents filed by the US government in Colorado and in other judicial districts around the country.
Several of the senior leaders of the organization are believed to be based in Mexico, although they enter the US occasionally to oversee the operations of lieutenants of the crime family.
The organization is alleged to be involved in the manufacture and distribution of high-quality counterfeit identity documents, including social security cards, birth certificates, marriage certificates, US and Mexican driver licenses, Matricula Consular ID cards, resident alien cards, work authorization documents, proof of vehicle insurance cards, temporary vehicle registration documents, and utility bills (many states require driver license applicants to show utility bills as proof of residence).
Court documents also indicate that the CFO started out in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, primarily manufacturing and selling counterfeit alien registration and social security cards. The organization soon expanded its counterfeit document operations to other cities across the United States, including New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, Denver, Atlanta, Albuquerque, and other cities.
Over the past decade, the CFO has been managed by six Castorena-Ibarra siblings: Pedro, Alfonso, Jose, Maria, Francisco Javier, and Raquel. During the last several years, three of these siblings, Pedro, Maria and Francisco Javier, have maintained direct involvement in the counterfeiting operations of the CFO in Denver and elsewhere. In recent years, several of these siblings have been arrested and prosecuted in the United States. Others have fled to Mexico to avoid US prosecution.
The CFO has been the target of federal investigations in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Denver, Lincoln, NE, and Des Moines, IA.
For example, Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations of the CFO in Los Angeles in the late 1990s resulted in the seizure of millions of counterfeit documents with an estimated street value of $20 million.
The documents were linked to more than 400 investigations and seizures in more than 50 cities in 33 states. The American Express Corporation attributed more than $2 million in losses to counterfeit identification documents that were traced to the CFO just in Los Angeles.
In Denver, ICE investigations into the CFO have resulted in the criminal prosecution of more than 50 individuals. Dozens of additional members of the CFO in Denver have been arrested and deported to Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador. ICE agents in Denver have also been responsible for the seizure of at least 20 computerized laboratories affiliated with the CFO and used to manufacture high-quality counterfeit identity documents. Agents have also seized 21 computers, 21 silk screen printing templates used to produce counterfeit documents, and nine handguns.
Court documents indicate that CFO cells in various US cities are exceptionally well organized. CFO cell leaders typically keep schedules with the names of each counterfeit document vendor and the times they are to report to a designated area to sell fake documents. The local cell leaders also record the number and type of false documents sold by vendors during their “shifts,†as well the funds collected for each transaction.
The vendors are allowed to keep a portion of the proceeds, with the remainder passed to the local cell leader. Cell leaders, in turn, pass on a portion of the proceeds to the senior leaders of the CFO. Senior CFO leaders charge a “rent†or “franchise†fee of as much as $15,000 per month for cell leaders to operate in a particular US city. These funds and other proceeds of counterfeit document sales are funneled to Mexico and other locations for those overseeing the CFO.
The organization moves its funds through three primary methods. Often, funds are wire transferred via money transmitter businesses. In other cases, bulk cash and checks are moved through express parcel services. In addition, the organization often employs couriers who physically transport US currency across US borders and between US cities.
Sources: US Department of Justice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Jim Kouri, CPP is fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and served in law enforcement for over 25 years.
This is impossible because Comrade Juan McNuts assures us that his proposals do not amount to "Amnesty." If counterfeit documents are available for less than $10 each ($20M / 2M Docs), Juan would be proved stupid.
today we wouldn’t tolerate the palmer raids and the development of the fbi under j edgar hoover to pursue the mafia as they did.
Johnny Sutton?
"Thank you, Jorge Bush. You kept Al-Qai'da from killing us so we could be murdered in our homes by criminals you let into the country with your crackpot "compassion."
“Family values don’t stop at the border”
Hey, they were just looking for employment to feed their families? Gods children, don’t you know.
Thank goodness they’re not in Boca!
Just forging the documents that Americans won’t forge.
How the hell do you know? Don’t give em any ideas! shhhhh LOL
“Thay is no mafia!”, Tony Soprano.
Open-borders politicians are nothing short of treasonous, and in a more enlightened time, when citizens knew how to deal with treachery, they would have been drawn and quartered.
Oh, well, one can dream.
Now that Organized Crime is tied in with Illegal Immigration, the FBI will be on their case.
We as Americans tend to interpret other cultures and nations, through our own experiences in our own culture, in our own nation.
It’s almost astoundingly naive.
There’s no similarity between the American Italian mob, and in particular (since these seem to be the two most completely misunderestimated) Mexico’s corruption, and similarly the relationship between China’s communists and the so-called Triads.
Mexican gangs are increasingly an American southwest hazard. Increasingly, there are in major southwest American metro areas, specific pockets of almost-total Mexican population. It’s a cliche, but there are parts of Southern California, where it really does look remarkably, almost exactly like you’re in Mexico.
The gangs are not a distinct object. They’re intermeshed politically with the bug-eyed left, with the “reconquistas”, with local politicians and their neighbors. They become thorns, on Mexican roses. Keeping others threatened. Driving away, others.
Advancing, the “reconquista”.
Was listening to the guy from the webside “Softwar” on Coast to Coast AM this week. He mentioned a similar sort of structure, with Chinese attacks on the internet.
Evidently, the lines between the PRC, and the so-called “Triads”, are blurring.
We ignore these mega-threats at our peril.
We do seem, to be ignoring them.
Why do people always think that illegal aliens can commit all the crimes they want and get away with it while citizens will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law? This is just a misconception for the most part. Illegals get prosecuted just like the rest of us, and probably get nailed harder in the system for the most part. I worked as a public defender for years and had to represent a lot of illegals in the process. If anything, the offers illegals would get from prosecutors tended to be worse than those for citizens. Often when we'd be negotiating a deal the fact that someone was Hispanic, illegal especially, would come up in the discussion. I'd hear something like, “your guy is an illegal alien, our jury is going to ream his a$$.” And they would too. Nobody likes illegal aliens, not the cops, not the prosecutors, not the judges and certainly not the jurors. Why in the heck would we let them go around committing crimes in our communities and not prosecute them? The feds have their b.s. excuses for not deporting people, and are actually doing a little better at deporting people now, especially when it comes to “criminal aliens,” those arrested for committing crimes other than coming here without permission. Local law enforcement typically do not do the feds job of enforcing immigration laws, but they do enforce our own local/state laws. There are always exceptions to anything it seems but for the most part throughout the country if illegal aliens get caught committing crimes they get prosecuted at least as hard as citizens if not harder.
Thay is no mafia!”, =congress
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