For the past few weeks, the news has focused on all the blood being shed on our southern border. While there is no doubt that this activity is scary and real, these gangs have to be a little more low key when they perform their day-to-day operations.
In order to do this, they need to blend in with the rest of us. When setting up residence to operate their illegal businesses, these criminals need to appear legitimate. The way they do this is with a wide variety of counterfeit documents. These counterfeit documents enable the rest of the illegal activity to occur, which makes them a weapon that could be a lot more dangerous than an assault rifle, IED or RPG.
Although the news media is drawing attention to this problem (yet again) because of the violence on the border, the violence and resulting concerns about border security are nothing new. Neither is the use of counterfeit documents by the criminals crossing over the border and setting up residence in the United States.
A PBS Frontline story from 2001 illustrates the worst case scenario of this problem. It details how terrorists are specifically trained to use counterfeit documents to move across borders. The story states that using counterfeit documents is part of the security training of Al Qaeda operatives. This story also states that the terrorists affiliate themselves with organized criminal syndicates that smuggle humans and provide counterfeit documents to accomplish this.
If an undesirable person has documents that appear to be legitimate, it’s no problem to cross a border or set up residence in a neighborhood just about anywhere.
Because of this, the plea bargain made with Pedro Castorena-Ibarra — who allegedly masterminded the production of high quality counterfeit documents from coast to coast — is an interesting chapter in the long running border security saga. Quite simply, these counterfeit documents enable all kinds of criminal and some say, potential terrorist activity.
At one time, Pedro Castorena-Ibarra was considered one of ICE's most wanted fugitives. A five year investigation uncovered his involvement in the production of millions of counterfeit documents, which were sold to anyone with the money to buy them. The plea bargain stipulates that Castorena will testify against other people in the counterfeit documents trade. When doing the research on this, I noticed that there isn't very much public information on exactly who he is going to testify against.
One of the problems with prosecuting Castorena came about when a lead ICE agent assigned to the case, Cory Voorhis was indicted for using a government intelligence system in an unauthorized manner. While working the Castorena case, Voorhis decided to take a look at former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter's plea bargains with illegal immigrants.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
"...it is a known fact that the last time a terrorist attack was carried out on U.S. soil, it was accomplished by individuals who used fake documents to enter the country"
Citation?
As I understand it, all the 9/11 hijackers entered the country using legitimately issued visas. Although some of the men gave false information on their applications and others violated their visa conditions after they had arrived in the US, their actual entry documents were not forged.
2 - Ed Dickson
A lot of the documents that we used to get the Visas were doctored or possibly even fake. This was documented by the 9-11 commission, although a lot of the passport information was destroyed. Additionally, 2 of the terrorists got fake driver's licences that were actually used to board the planes.
Fake IDs 9/11 Report
Might be my perception, but if fake/doctored documents were used to obtain the real one (Visa) the documents were obtained fraudulently using fake/doctored documents.
The normal intent of people using fake ID is to use feeder documents (fake) to establish themselves as legitimate and obtain legitimate ID.
Most of the organizations making the fake documents produce these feeder documents, which can be all kinds of documents like utility bills.
3 - Dr Dreadful
I understand that, Ed, but your sweeping statement undermines your whole argument. The 9/11 Commission documented failures in the immigration system, but the bottom line is that as far as the INS was concerned at the time, the hijackers were in the country legally.
Al-Qaeda could easily have gone the Mexican route, but didn't. For fairly obvious reasons, I think, they decided that it would be better for the operation if they got their people into the US through regular channels.
4 - roger nowosielski
Is it because part of the operation (such as getting the pilot licenses) yet to complete had to look legit?
5 - Dr Dreadful
I think so. If the plan had been simply to blow up a bus in El Paso or something like that, then sneaking in from Mexico would have worked just fine. But the plot was too elaborate and there were too many things that could have gone wrong had the hijackers not been here legally.
6 - suad leija
i am suad leija. my father makes visa and passport
7 - suad leija
there where not to many things to go wrong. at that time there where no id checks and no one had seen or could imagine this happening so no was was looking
8 - roger nowosielski
You're not saying he's a counterfeiter?
9 - suad leija
my father is manuel leija sanchez
10 - roger nowosielski
And my name is José Jiménez!
11 - José Jiménez
That's ridiculous!
12 - suad leija
why would you say i am not who i said. the article is about my family. perhaps you should read the article
13 - roger nowosielski
No hablo inglese
14 - suad leija
this is the first time on something like this blog for me and wondered about the type of people and how they discuss the news and events. i thought that the discussion in ref to the article would be interesting. you seem to represent a group that really has nothing to add to the topic except what you have said, very little and very uninformed. bye
15 - Roger Nowosielski
Hey, suad leija.
Don't hang up just yet. You seem to know more about it than most of us. So why don't you energize this thread and get it going? Who knows,
it might catch on like wildfire. It's your move.
16 - Roger Nowosielski
Suad leija:
Yes, I did read the article. But it would help if you were to verify your own authenticity by listing your URL.
17 - Mr. Dock Ellis
Interesting piece, but I have to say the real way to tighten the border is to build a wall. It worked in Israel.
Obviously, this country is still lagging in this subject. We still have no system that will keep track of foreigners entering this country. In other words, we never know if and when they leave. Maybe that's why two 9/11 terrorists had their visas renewed in the spring of 2002.
18 - Cindy
Perhaps we should start on the microchip implants Mr. Dock Ellis. That way everyone can be tracked wherever each of us goes.
A Wall worked in Israel? You're either joking or just being provocative.
19 - El Bicho
"A lot of the documents that we used to get the Visas were doctored or possibly even fake."
Huh?! I hope that wasn't a Freudian slip.
Very insightful comment, suad.
20 - Roger Nowosielski
This will be much sooner than you think. There'll be a thousand ways to introduce the chip - through flew vaccine, x-rays, you name it. Some of us may already have implants. Pablo should have a field day.
21 - Dave Nalle
I suspect that even Pablo doesn't think you can insert a chip with an x-ray.
Dave
22 - Roger Nowosielski
Just fishing, Dave. Everyone's entitled to an off-day.
23 - Cindy
Some of us may already have implants.
I think most of you already have implants.
24 - Roger Nowosielski
Is this a generic "you," and are you perchance included?
25 - Clavos
I have some dental implants.
I can hear CIA shortwave radio transmissions through them.
Also news broadcasts from Slovenia...