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GREENSBORO — An illegal immigrant from New Jersey faces 10 years in federal prison on charges of selling fraudulent Tar Heel driver’s licenses to other illegal immigrants for $600 apiece. Joao Cueiroz-Serafim, 21, was arrested Feb. 8 at a Greensboro gas station with three fellow citizens of Brazil who lived illegally in New Jersey. He was allegedly helping them to get North Carolina licenses by providing transportation, arranging lodging, and supplying false documents.

One of the interlopers succeeded in getting a license the day before Cueiroz-Serafim was arrested, according to U.S. Middle District Court records. The alleged conspiracy was uncovered not by the state Division of Motor Vehicles, which issues state driver’s licenses, but by an alert alcohol-control agent who suspected erroneously that the Brazilians were drug dealers.

Critics say the incident shows North Carolina remains a mecca for illegal immigrants seeking licenses they can’t get in states with more hard-nosed licensing systems.

‘They should charge this guy for double fraud: His real crime is defrauding the other illegal aliens into thinking they actually needed his help to get a license in North Carolina,’ said William Gheen, director of the Raleigh-based Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, which supports political candidates who want to rein in illegal immigration.

Cueiroz-Serafim, a resident of Newark, N.J., was indicted Monday by a federal grand jury in Greensboro.

Last month’s arrest was his second on a charge of license fraud in the Triad. He was arrested in Alamance County on similar state charges Aug. 24 with two other illegals who were seeking licenses, state and federal court records said.

The Alamance charges remain unresolved. He is accused of jumping bond in that case.

In the Alamance County case, the Brazilian initially claimed to be an indigent who needed help from the taxpayer-financed public defender’s office, court records show.

Later, he hired a private attorney, who persuaded a judge to lower his bail from $20,000 to $2,000. After posting that amount in cash, he never showed up for trial, court records say.

During Cueiroz-Serafim’s more recent arrest, officers ‘found he had approximately $2,774 in his possession,’ Special Agent Lewis S. Winer of the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in an affidavit.

Illegal immigrants seek driver’s licenses because the licenses enable them to find work, cash checks and otherwise masquerade as legitimate residents or visitors to this country.

Police and court officials in northern New Jersey told the News & Record last year they repeatedly confiscate fraudulent Tar Heel licenses from illegal immigrants living there.

Two of those same officials said Wednesday it’s still a problem, but the volume of confiscations might have slackened. One suggested that’s because illegal immigrants now know their town views all confiscated North Carolina licenses as fraudulent until proven otherwise.

Through his press secretary, Gov. Mike Easley rejected the image of North Carolina as a weak link in licensing security.

‘North Carolina has some of the strongest measures in place to ensure the security of driver licenses while preventing identity fraud,’ Easley aide Sherri Johnson said.

She said the state DMV will work with the General Assembly this spring to ‘implement further reforms to protect our citizens, including elimination of the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number as an acceptable form of ID.’

North Carolina is one of only six states that accept the ITIN in licensing, a document easily obtained by illegal immigrants from the Internal Revenue Service.

In his affidavit, Winer said officers confiscated an ITIN from one of Cueiroz-Serafim’s customers. The men face either state charges or deportation, and Cueiroz-Serafim also faces additional state charges, Winer said.

DMV spokesman Ernie Seneca said the latest case is not representative of an agency that is working hard to improve technology and other fraud-prevention techniques. It soon will have equipment to verify North Carolina addresses submitted by license applicants, making it harder for out-of-state impostors, he said.

Seneca said the Brazilian who got a license Feb. 7 presented what was then a valid visa, but which expired in four days. Following new security measures, a DMV examiner at the Coliseum Boulevard office in Greensboro issued the man a license that expired with the visa, four days later, he said.

Seneca offered no opinion when asked if the examiner shouldn’t have been suspicious of someone seeking a license under those conditions.

The alleged conspiracy began to unravel when the four Brazilians arrived in a car with a New Jersey license, paid cash to rent rooms at a Winston-Salem motel, then rented a car to use instead of the one with out-of-state tags, according to Winer’s affidavit.

That caught the attention of a Forsyth County ABC officer who staked out the motel and followed the group to Greensboro. The ABC officer confronted the men at the gas station, summoning DMV investigators after learning the illicit goal was licenses, not drugs, Winer said.

3/2/2006
By Taft Wireback
Staff Writer
NEWS & RECORD EXCLUSIVE
Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com

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