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June 21, 2006
2 Texans accused of planning to sell counterfeit IDs
NORTH BERGEN, NJ -- (AP) --- Pelcastre brothers, Angel, 31, and Jorge, 34, both of Dallas were a walking threat to US national security. They were expert document forgers who, for a few thousand dollars, could give a new identity to anyone---conquistadores, terrorists, etc.
The brothers had turned a Tonnelle Avenue hotel room into a business office and were readying a massive cache of fake Social Security cards for delivery to a local identity broker. Myriads of US government documents were available----birth certificates, SS cards, passports, resident alien cards, and driver's licenses for any state in the country including.
A task force of NJ state troopers and officers from both the Bergen and Hudson county prosecutors' offices happened upon two cars bearing Texas plates in a hotel parking. Authorities wouldn't identify the hotel by name for fear it could hinder cooperation from other hotels in future investigations or spark retribution from savage, murderous drug lords. In a Chevrolet Impala and a Pontiac Firebird, the brothers went to an office supply store in a nearby shopping center to purchase computer supplies.
They were then followed to a Secaucus self-storage facility where they loaded several boxes into one of the cars. One of the men stood lookout, which heightened police suspicion. Authorities approached the men when they returned to the hotel and questioned them separately. The brothers consented to a search of their cars, hotel room and the storage facility, he said. Police recovered laminating sheets with built-in security features, pages of blank documents waiting for fake names and information, finished documents, computers and software to create the fake IDs......worth about $500,000 on the street.
Police also recovered $6,000 in cash, which was the first payment from a fake document broker for a shipment of 500 Social Security cards. "They were aggressively selling to brokers," he said. "This isn't like selling driver's licenses to individuals. These were multiple layers of high-level documents."
The brothers were being held in jail without bail on charges of possessing fraudulent documents and conspiracy to sell fraudulent documents. Federal charges are also pending.
NOTE But there's many, many more taking their place.
Many more taking their place.