Hillsboro -- The first trial in what authorities have called the biggest immigration fraud case in Oregon history started Wednesday in Washington County Circuit Court.
Miguel Robleto, 47, of Hillsboro is charged with racketeering involving 189 counts of money laundering, forgery, falsifying business records, tampering with public records and related crimes.
Robleto's Drive Master Education, a third-party testing business in Hillsboro, provided false Oregon addresses, identification and sometimes fraudulent driving tests and applications for thousands of illegal immigrants from across the nation.
Once they had an Oregon driver's license, the illegal immigrants could use the photo ID to open bank accounts, get credit cards, buy airplane tickets and apply for jobs and government services.
Investigators said Robleto, two of his brothers and others who worked for Drive Master Education and the La Unica testing business in Beaverton handled about 80,000 Oregon driver's license applications over two years, before the state shut their operations in 2003.
Vitolins said the prosecution will present about 30 witnesses, including two people who sold canceled mail with fake addresses, a man who hauled illegal immigrants to Robleto's business from California, and police officers who conducted surveillance that shows Drive Master Education billed DMV for driving tests it never performed.
Eight of 12 people arrested in connection with the case have pleaded guilty.
To me this brings up several issues...
First, did DMV investigate this company?
Second, even though Drive Master Education trained and tested the drivers, it is still DMV's responsibility to make sure that the applicants are legitimate.
Finally, although I am glad to see that a case like this is finally coming to court and may set a precedent for future cases, I think it should also be pointed out that we allowed companies like this one to start in the first place. How many other companies are out there doing similar things.
Like a broken record, I will say again, a lot of the problems that we are having would not be here if we followed the laws that are in place.
4 comments:
Excellent post. I'd be encouraged if Oregon, along with Federal help, went after all of those illegals - but I won't hold my breath on that!
I've begun to question why we need to have a Congress, or state legistlatures. No joke, I'm serious.
We have thousands of laws on the books, but most are not enforced.
Why add more to the mix? Well, I guess that's because it's what "lawmakers" figure they were elected to do.
I have a radical idea: let's eliminate most of the thousands of pages of laws on the books, keeping only the most important ones - you know, the ones you were raised with. You can't assault or kill somebody. No need to add "hate crime" legislation; an atrocity speaks for itself, regardless of the victim.
So you think Homeland Security would have looked into this? I think the REAL ID is a big joke now and few states are ready for the May 2008 deadline - see news releases Jan 11 2008
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