5 charged with scheme to obtain driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants

Five people are federally charged with conspiring to provide driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally and living in states where they are ineligible for the licenses.

The alleged co-conspirators operated in New England, with three of them residing in Massachusetts and the other two living in Connecticut at the time of the alleged conspiracy, which prosecutors say occurred between November 2020 through last September.

Three of the five were arrested following indictment and were ordered detained until trial or a detention hearing. The other two are currently living in Brazil.

The three arrested are Gabriel Nascimento De Andrade, 26, of Boston; Cesar Agusto Martin Reis, 28, of Waterbury, Conn.; and Helbert Costa Generoso, 39, of Danbury, Conn.

The other two charged in the federal indictment and now living in Brazil are Edvan Fernandes Alves De Andrade, 34, formerly of Worcester, and Leonel Texeiera De Souza Junior, 38, formerly of Milford.

They face charges of conspiracy to unlawfully produce and possess with intent to transfer identification documents and possession with intent to use or transfer unlawfully identification documents — both of which carry up to five years in prison — and well as charges of furnishing a false passport to another, which carries up to a decade in prison.

According to the indictment unsealed earlier this week, the alleged conspirators obtained New York state driver’s licenses for illegal immigrant customers who didn’t live there after New York legalized licensure for undocumented immigrants in 2019.

When Massachusetts legalized the same practice in the summer of 2023, the conspirators allegedly also obtained Bay State licenses for their customers.

Federal prosecutors say that throughout the scheme, the defendants applied for licenses for more than 1,000 customers — successfully obtaining more than 600 of them — to the tune of at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How it worked

The alleged conspirators maintained addresses in New York state, and later Massachusetts, where they could falsify residency records for their clients.

The states also required learners permits to be issued prior to full licensure, but skirting this requirement was eased by New York state’s system of allowing learner’s permits tests to be administered online instead of in-person, according to the indictment.

Instead of having the test actually monitored by employees, it just required the test taker’s permission for the testing website to take webcam photos from time to time to make sure no cheating was involved.

The alleged conspirators simply had their clients take photos of themselves seated at a desk, according to the indictment, and then uploaded those photos to the system instead of a live webcam shot.

Once the client was ready for the full license, the alleged conspirators picked them up several at a time from out of state and drove them to New York state DMV branches with falsified residency documents already prepared. Those who passed the driving test would then have their licenses mailed to the addresses controlled by the alleged conspirators, who would in turn distribute the licenses to their customers.

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