FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Friday, February 27, 2015
Florida Man Pleads Guilty for Role in Puerto Rican Identity Trafficking Ring
A Florida man pleaded guilty today for his role in a large-scale identity trafficking ring, which sold the identities of Puerto Rican U.S. citizens to foreign nationals to allow them to enter or remain in the United States illegally. To date, a total of 14 individuals have been charged for their roles in this identity trafficking ring, and four have pleaded guilty.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Rosa E. Rodríguez-Vélez of the District of Puerto Rico, Director Sarah R. Saldaña of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Chief Postal Inspector Guy J. Cottrell of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), Director Bill A. Miller of the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) and Chief Richard Weber of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) made the announcement.
Rey David Bravo-Aguirre, 43, of Bartow, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit identification fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling for financial gain and one count of transferring and possessing means of identification of another person during and in relation to a felony. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 3, 2015, before U.S. District Judge Juan M. Pérez- Giménez of the District of Puerto Rico.
According to his plea agreement, Bravo-Aguirre operated as a broker of Puerto Rican identities and corresponding identity documents out of Bartow, Florida. In that role, Bravo-Aguirre received identity documents from other members of the conspiracy located in the Caguas-area of Puerto Rico and sold them to individuals unlawfully residing in Florida. Specifically, Bravo-Aguirre admitted that he provided Social Security cards and corresponding Puerto Rico birth certificates to his customers.
The charges are the result of Operation Island Express II, an ongoing, nationally-coordinated investigation led by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), USPIS, DSS and IRS-CI offices in Chicago, in coordination with the ICE-HSI San Juan Office. The Illinois Secretary of State Police also provided substantial assistance. The ICE-HSI Attaché office in the Dominican Republic, National Drug Intelligence Center - Document and Media Exploitation Branch and International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2) provided invaluable assistance, as well as various ICE, USPIS, DSS and IRS CI offices around the country.
The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Marianne Shelvey of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section and William Kenety of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jorge Ramos of the District of Puerto Rico.
Showing posts with label FOREIGN NATIONALS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FOREIGN NATIONALS. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS IN KYIV, UKRAINE
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Meeting With Staff and Families of Embassy Kyiv
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Kyiv, Ukraine
March 4, 2014
AMBASSADOR PYATT: I’ll just say, Mr. Secretary, let me present to you the team of Embassy Kyiv, the hardest working embassy in the U.S. Foreign Service today. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY KERRY: Wow. I’ll tell you, I go to some places and the ambassador says that and I say, “Okay.” (Laughter.) But here, you are the hardest working embassy in the world right now. Thank you very, very much for all that you are doing. Geoff, thanks so much for your leadership.
I think character is sometimes shown when the whole world is watching and people see character, but more often than not, real character is shown when people aren’t watching or when you don’t think they’re listening – and they’ve been listening to him. We all know that. But this guy is attentive to all of you, to staff, to family, to everybody’s concerns, and I hope you will join me in just saying thank you because I think we have a terrific ambassador here and a great leader here. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. And I see – you guys know we got a bunch of Marines here who help protect us. Thank you. Semper Fi and thank you for your service to our country, all of you in uniform, and some of you I know are not in uniform but you serve in the military or as attaches or otherwise. Thank you very much for your service, all of you. (Applause.) Thank you.
I guess we have, somewhere in the vicinity, about 100 Americans assigned here and several hundred, 300 or more, foreign nationals who work for us. And I just want to say a word to all of you, but let me speak first to the foreign nationals. How many of you are foreign nationals? How many of you are – thank you. We can’t do this without you. And so I want to say, profoundly, thank you to you, because you facilitate our ability to really understand what’s happening, to understand the country, and you are great ambassadors for us in the country because you can explain what we’re really all about and what we try to accomplish, so I thank you very, very much. I know sometimes somebody may criticize you or say, “What are you doing working with them,” and you put yourselves on the line, and we admire you enormously and everybody here thanks you for your service to us. We appreciate it. (Applause.)
And then – now I know we’re living right now under a sort of – one of those tricky moments where we have an authorized departure and some folks who are in Warsaw. And it’s hard. It’s hard even if you’re unaccompanied here. It’s hard to have family and loved ones separated. This is a difficult time. We are witnessing transformation globally. I cannot tell you how many embassies I go to that are sharing a level of tension today that makes being in the Foreign Service or Civil Service – civil servants but also working in tense situations, and our Marines all around the world know, given the experience of Benghazi, what we see in the attempted plots on many places in the world.
There are bad guys out there. There are bad folks out there who incidentally don’t have a program for educating people. They don’t have a program or complaint with the government about its healthcare system. They don’t have anything whatsoever to say about macroeconomic policy or how you develop jobs, how you’re going to take care of growing populations of young people who need opportunity. They don’t say anything about that. All they do is say, “You got to believe what I believe, and if you don’t, we’re going to kill you.” It’s the antithesis of everything that we have fought for since the days of the founding of our country. It’s an anachronism that runs against everything that we thought we had resolved in the course of the 20th century in two great World Wars and several other wars where we learned about how we can best help people live a fuller life and have the right to fulfill their aspirations.
But we got some people out there who are ready to throw over whole governments or take over governments simply to say no – no to modernity, no to opportunity, no particularly to women in so many parts of the world, no to education for children. So this challenge is much bigger, folks, than a lot of people have really kind of focused on. And here, particularly, we are witnessing a real throwback to 19th century behavior – imperialism. At the butt of a gun we’re going to impose our will and we’re going to deny you the right to be free. And particularly, some of those people I met today on Institutska Street when I was walking down there and I went over to talk to a few people, these women came up to me and pleaded and said, “Don’t let us go back to have to live under a man like Yanukovych who steals our future, who steals from us.” Met a man who said, “I went to Australia last year,” said, “I came back here, but I want to live like I saw people be able to live in Australia.”
People want respect, they want opportunity. That Tunisian fruit vendor who burned himself, burned himself because he was exhausted by the corruption of his government and the denial of his opportunity to be able to live his life, sell his fruit. We take a lot of things for granted unfortunately in America. We’re privileged to be able to, as much as I think we shouldn’t. You don’t. None of you do. Every one of you has chosen to be here because you’ve joined the Foreign Service or the Civil Service or you’re representing one of the other agencies that are represented in the Embassy because you want to make a difference and you believe you can make a difference. And I’m here tonight to tell you, you are making a difference – tough as it is sometimes, as small as the gesture may seem sometimes. Here in the consulate division and somebody walks in to get their visa – how they’re treated, how they’re greeted, how fast we react, how much we respect them may be their only contact with America or our values, particularly if they’re denied the opportunity to get the visa.
So everybody here is an ambassador, and I just want to thank you tonight for being willing to be on the front lines. Thank you on behalf of President Obama and our country for representing us on the front lines of a struggle now that could define a lot of things going forward. Whether or not we can peacefully make the institutions of rule of law work when a country is in violation of the UN Charter, the Final Act of Helsinki, its own basing agreement with Ukraine, as well as the 1994 Budapest agreement where we all agreed we would protect Ukraine from external attack, and here they are externally taking over and trying to annex Crimea.
So we got a lot of work to do, but rest assured there aren’t a lot of jobs around where you can get up in the morning and go to work and know that you’re doing something that’s bigger than yourself, that’s exciting, that may change day by day where you get as much intellectual input, as much information, as much opportunity to know people in other parts of the world, learn other languages, learn other cultures, and carry the values of the United States of America with you every single day.
So I say God bless you, thank you, we’re proud of you, keep up the good work, and we will ultimately achieve many of the goals if not all of the goals we’re chasing. Thank you. God bless. (Applause.)
SECRETARY KERRY: Wow. I’ll tell you, I go to some places and the ambassador says that and I say, “Okay.” (Laughter.) But here, you are the hardest working embassy in the world right now. Thank you very, very much for all that you are doing. Geoff, thanks so much for your leadership.
I think character is sometimes shown when the whole world is watching and people see character, but more often than not, real character is shown when people aren’t watching or when you don’t think they’re listening – and they’ve been listening to him. We all know that. But this guy is attentive to all of you, to staff, to family, to everybody’s concerns, and I hope you will join me in just saying thank you because I think we have a terrific ambassador here and a great leader here. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. And I see – you guys know we got a bunch of Marines here who help protect us. Thank you. Semper Fi and thank you for your service to our country, all of you in uniform, and some of you I know are not in uniform but you serve in the military or as attaches or otherwise. Thank you very much for your service, all of you. (Applause.) Thank you.
I guess we have, somewhere in the vicinity, about 100 Americans assigned here and several hundred, 300 or more, foreign nationals who work for us. And I just want to say a word to all of you, but let me speak first to the foreign nationals. How many of you are foreign nationals? How many of you are – thank you. We can’t do this without you. And so I want to say, profoundly, thank you to you, because you facilitate our ability to really understand what’s happening, to understand the country, and you are great ambassadors for us in the country because you can explain what we’re really all about and what we try to accomplish, so I thank you very, very much. I know sometimes somebody may criticize you or say, “What are you doing working with them,” and you put yourselves on the line, and we admire you enormously and everybody here thanks you for your service to us. We appreciate it. (Applause.)
And then – now I know we’re living right now under a sort of – one of those tricky moments where we have an authorized departure and some folks who are in Warsaw. And it’s hard. It’s hard even if you’re unaccompanied here. It’s hard to have family and loved ones separated. This is a difficult time. We are witnessing transformation globally. I cannot tell you how many embassies I go to that are sharing a level of tension today that makes being in the Foreign Service or Civil Service – civil servants but also working in tense situations, and our Marines all around the world know, given the experience of Benghazi, what we see in the attempted plots on many places in the world.
There are bad guys out there. There are bad folks out there who incidentally don’t have a program for educating people. They don’t have a program or complaint with the government about its healthcare system. They don’t have anything whatsoever to say about macroeconomic policy or how you develop jobs, how you’re going to take care of growing populations of young people who need opportunity. They don’t say anything about that. All they do is say, “You got to believe what I believe, and if you don’t, we’re going to kill you.” It’s the antithesis of everything that we have fought for since the days of the founding of our country. It’s an anachronism that runs against everything that we thought we had resolved in the course of the 20th century in two great World Wars and several other wars where we learned about how we can best help people live a fuller life and have the right to fulfill their aspirations.
But we got some people out there who are ready to throw over whole governments or take over governments simply to say no – no to modernity, no to opportunity, no particularly to women in so many parts of the world, no to education for children. So this challenge is much bigger, folks, than a lot of people have really kind of focused on. And here, particularly, we are witnessing a real throwback to 19th century behavior – imperialism. At the butt of a gun we’re going to impose our will and we’re going to deny you the right to be free. And particularly, some of those people I met today on Institutska Street when I was walking down there and I went over to talk to a few people, these women came up to me and pleaded and said, “Don’t let us go back to have to live under a man like Yanukovych who steals our future, who steals from us.” Met a man who said, “I went to Australia last year,” said, “I came back here, but I want to live like I saw people be able to live in Australia.”
People want respect, they want opportunity. That Tunisian fruit vendor who burned himself, burned himself because he was exhausted by the corruption of his government and the denial of his opportunity to be able to live his life, sell his fruit. We take a lot of things for granted unfortunately in America. We’re privileged to be able to, as much as I think we shouldn’t. You don’t. None of you do. Every one of you has chosen to be here because you’ve joined the Foreign Service or the Civil Service or you’re representing one of the other agencies that are represented in the Embassy because you want to make a difference and you believe you can make a difference. And I’m here tonight to tell you, you are making a difference – tough as it is sometimes, as small as the gesture may seem sometimes. Here in the consulate division and somebody walks in to get their visa – how they’re treated, how they’re greeted, how fast we react, how much we respect them may be their only contact with America or our values, particularly if they’re denied the opportunity to get the visa.
So everybody here is an ambassador, and I just want to thank you tonight for being willing to be on the front lines. Thank you on behalf of President Obama and our country for representing us on the front lines of a struggle now that could define a lot of things going forward. Whether or not we can peacefully make the institutions of rule of law work when a country is in violation of the UN Charter, the Final Act of Helsinki, its own basing agreement with Ukraine, as well as the 1994 Budapest agreement where we all agreed we would protect Ukraine from external attack, and here they are externally taking over and trying to annex Crimea.
So we got a lot of work to do, but rest assured there aren’t a lot of jobs around where you can get up in the morning and go to work and know that you’re doing something that’s bigger than yourself, that’s exciting, that may change day by day where you get as much intellectual input, as much information, as much opportunity to know people in other parts of the world, learn other languages, learn other cultures, and carry the values of the United States of America with you every single day.
So I say God bless you, thank you, we’re proud of you, keep up the good work, and we will ultimately achieve many of the goals if not all of the goals we’re chasing. Thank you. God bless. (Applause.)
Thursday, August 2, 2012
KAZAKHSTANI NATIONAL GETS 27 MONTH PRISON TERM FOR INVOLVEMENT IN STOCK FRAUD SCHEME
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICEMonday, July 30, 2012
Kazakhstani National Sentenced to 27 Months in Prison for Money Laundering
WASHINGTON – Daniyar Zhaxalyk, 26, a citizen of Kazakhstan who entered the United States on a student visa, was sentenced today to 27 months in prison for his role in a sophisticated stock fraud scheme that caused more than $400,000 in losses, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Kenneth Magidson.
Zhaxalyk was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. in the Southern District of Texas. In addition to his prison term, Zhaxalyk was ordered to pay $221,925 in restitution. Zhaxalyk will be deported from the United States upon the completion of his sentence.
According to court documents, Zhaxalyk agreed to launder funds generated in a sophisticated "hack and dump" stock scheme that caused more than $400,000 in losses. The indictment charges that Zhaxalyk’s co-conspirators illegally accessed brokerage accounts to engage in a stock fraud scheme in which the compromised accounts were used to purchase borrowed shares of stock at above-market prices from the defendants’ personal brokerage accounts. Zhaxalyk’s co-conspirators then repurchased the borrowed shares at the considerably lower market price, returned the borrowed shares to the stock lender, and claimed as profit the difference between the market price and the inflated price paid by the compromised victim accounts.
A co-defendant, Alexey Li, also a citizen of Kazakhstan who entered the United States on a student visa, previously pleaded guilty in Houston on March 2, 2012, and was sentenced to three months in prison and ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution. Two other defendants remain at large.
This case was investigated by the St. Louis, San Francisco and Houston offices of the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ethan Arenson of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark McIntyre of the Southern District of Texas.
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