SEATTLE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) former Chief Counsel for the Seattle Workplace of Principal Authorized Advisor (OPLA) was sentenced to 48 months in jail for a wire fraud and aggravated identification theft scheme involving the identities of quite a few aliens.
The investigation into Raphael Sanchez’s scheme started with ICE’s Workplace of Skilled Duty (OPR). The workplace obtained info that Sanchez was working a monetary account for out of doors consulting providers in a suspicious method, and its inside investigation led to prison prices being filed in opposition to Sanchez.
“Mr. Sanchez acted alone in his prison enterprise and his actions mustn’t mirror on the hardworking women and men at Seattle’s Workplace of the Chief Counsel. The investigation performed by ICE’s Workplace of Skilled Duty demonstrates that staff who violate public belief shall be held accountable,” mentioned Tracy Brief, Principal Authorized Advisor for ICE. “His sentence sends a robust message that corruption is not going to be tolerated.”
Sanchez, who was chargeable for immigration removing proceedings in Alaska, Oregon and Washington, admitted in his plea settlement that he deliberately devised a scheme to defraud aliens in varied phases of immigration removing proceedings with ICE. Sanchez used the personally identifiable info of these aliens to open strains of credit score and private loans of their names, manipulated their credit score bureau information and transferred funds to and bought items for himself utilizing bank cards issued of their names.
Sanchez admitted that he obtained personally identifiable info of the sufferer aliens by utilizing ICE’s official pc database methods and by accessing their official, hard-copy immigration A-files. He then used his work pc to forge identification paperwork, together with social safety playing cards and Washington State driver’s licenses, within the victims’ names. Sanchez used these solid paperwork to open bank card and financial institution accounts topic to his personal management within the names of the aliens. ICE is presently reviewing the immigration instances of every of the victims to make sure that Sanchez didn’t adversely influence any immigration matter for his personal private achieve.
To additional the scheme, Sanchez listed his residence because the aliens’ dwelling addresses on account paperwork. In some instances, he created public utility account statements of their names to offer the required proof of residence to open strains of credit score of their names or to hide the scheme. He additionally opened e-mail and on-line monetary accounts within the names of a number of aliens, manufactured a false earnings-and-leave assertion within the identify of an alien, and registered a automobile in her identify.
As soon as the accounts have been authorised and opened, Sanchez made prices or drew funds totaling greater than $190,000 within the names of aliens to himself or entities that he managed, usually utilizing PayPal and cellular point-of-sale gadgets from Amazon, Sq., Venmo and Coin to course of fraudulent transactions. In numerous instances, Sanchez bought items on-line within the names of aliens and had them shipped to his residence. Sanchez additionally employed credit-monitoring providers and corresponded with credit score bureaus within the names of aliens to hide his fraud scheme. Sanchez additionally claimed three aliens as relative dependents on his tax returns for 2014, 2015, and 2016.
If any particular person believes they could have been a sufferer of Sanchez’s prison exercise, they could report such an allegation to ICE’s Workplace of Skilled Duty at 1-877-2INTAKE or joint.intake@dhs.gov.