A federal grand jury indicted eight Phoenix residents, including a mother and daughter on charges they schemed to counterfeit immigration and Social Security documents for Mexicans trying to enter the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the Phoenix-area residents were indicted on March 22 by a federal grand jury for their involvement in an elaborate fraud ring that was designed to hide the true identities of Mexican nationals in order to shield them from detection by U.S. immigration authorities.
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The 16-count indictment, said ICE, followed an extensive investigation led by theArizona Department of Transportation’s Office of Special Investigations and the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, with significant investigative and legal assistance from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and ICE’s Office of the Chief Counsel (OCC) Phoenix. Named in the indictment are:
Esther Gonzales Guerrero, 45, of Peoria, AZ;
Magdalena Adelisa Gonzales Guerrero, 23, of Peoria;
Luis Arsenio Chavez Velazquez, 37, of Phoenix;
Aldair Guerra Lopez, 22, of Peoria;
Teodoro Bueno Figueroa, 36, of Phoenix;
Juan Gabriel Echevarria Mendoza, 34, of Phoenix; and
Armando Garcia Chavez, 50, of Surprise, AZ
ICE said a conviction for passport fraud carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both. A conviction for social security fraud carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.
According to the indictment, the scheme was complicated and rested on Esther Guerrero’s family and her legal status in the U.S. Guerrero and her daughter, Magdalena Guerrero, said ICE, are both U.S. citizens. They procured counterfeit Mexican documents falsely identifying the other defendants, who were all Mexican nationals, as the biological children of Esther Guerrero or her U.S. citizen parents. The indictment charges that the six Mexican nationals then used the counterfeit Mexican documents to get U.S. passports under false names. Five of the other defendants used the fraudulent passports to get Social Security cards under the false names.
Further, the indictment charges the mother and daughter with harboring the other defendants from U.S. immigration authorities. Three of the Mexican national defendants were previously ordered removed from the United States and face charges for illegal reentry of a removed alien.
“A U.S. passport provides our nation’s citizens benefits while travelling abroad, allows them to reenter the United States upon their return home, and serves as an important identification document,” said Acting United States Attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel. “Those who make false statements on passport applications and Social Security forms to conceal their true identities and to keep their illegal presence in the United States hidden from authorities, diminish the ability of all citizens to utilize and rely on this form of identification.”
Additional investigative and law enforcement support was provided by the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Office of Special Investigations, the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Phoenix Police Department.
