They scam their own first

From WPIX:

We’re not using her full name because she is an illegal resident of Queens. She and her family gave about $17,000 to a guy they say was the family priest, Rajesh Jhangdharie. He promised to get them work permits and green cards. We haven’t checked into his religious background because it’s not that relevant here. All that really matters is he has their money and they never received any papers and haven’t gotten a full refund.

State Senate passes fake ID bill

From Animal New York

From the Times Ledger:

The illicit market for fake identification has made Roosevelt Avenue a destination for decades for underage youths looking for “proof” to enter bars and clubs as well as immigrants looking for a fake green card or Social Security card.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was aware of the problem and was working with law enforcement to prevent false documents from aiding terrorists. State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) has spent nearly a decade trying to remedy the dangerous situation.

His bill to crack down on the fake ID market and other forged official documents was passed unanimously by the state Senate last Friday. The bill toughens the penalties against individuals who manufacture or sell fake IDs, especially government identifications, such as driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security cards.

“This illicit industry does us a lot of harm, and it is still a huge problem in Queens,” Peralta said. “This bill and the new municipal ID program is very bad news for the counterfeit mills operators. We have to crack down on the mills and increase the penalties on these mill operators to eradicate this serious problem.”

The bill prohibits the sale of forged instruments. It also amends the penal code to include the sale and manufacture of government issue documents as a class C felony in the first degree that would carry a penalty of 1 to 15 years behind bars. In addition, it creates the presumption that an individual who possesses two or more forged government documents depicting a person other than him or herself intends to sell those fake documents.

NBC discovers Indian green card scam

From NBC:

There‘s growing concern that undocumented young men are illegally crossing the US border knowing they can head to family court for help getting special immigration status. It’s a little known route they’ve learned to navigate with the help of lawyers and criminal human smugglers who sources say are profiting. I-Team reporter Melissa Russo has this exclusive story.

So what's up with Flushing Commons?

From Crains:

In 2005, Flushing-based TDC Development, backed by the blue-chip Rockefeller Group, won the rights to knock down a five-acre city-owned parking lot on the edge of downtown and build 600 apartments, plus 420,000 square feet of retail and office space. For good measure, the developer would throw in a 62,000-square-foot YMCA, 36,000 square feet of community space and 1,600 parking spaces.

First to hold up the project was Comptroller John Liu, then the local councilman. He threatened to oppose the plan until developers added more parking. Not until 2010 did Flushing Commons finally win needed City Council approval.

Having cleared that crucial hurdle, Flushing Commons still has gone nowhere. TDC's website still projects a completion date of 2013 or 2014, but that is highly unlikely given that construction is expected to take more than three years.

Even worse, a spokesman for the city's Economic Development Corp., which is selling the lot to the developers, said that TDC has yet to raise enough money to buy the land from the city.

The most recent public update about the project came in July, when TDC Development President Michael Meyer said that traditional funding had dried up and that he was trying to secure loans from Chinese businesses in what is the city's largest Chinese neighborhood.

He and TDC Chief Executive Michael Lee, a native of Taiwan, are also seeking to tap into the federal EB-5 program, which provides a path to green cards for foreigners in exchange for investments of $500,000 or more in development projects.

A spokesman for the EDC declined to say how much funding the developers had raised, but noted that under the original contract they are required to come up with the cash by "this fall," and must begin construction by year's end.

Bakery worker and pal busted making forged IDs

From the Daily News:

A Brooklyn bakery worker who sold cakes and pastries also ran a half-baked side business that offered forged ID cards, prosecutors charged Thursday.

Jose Mateo Castro, 56, who worked at Las Conchitas Bakery in Sunset Park, was recently indicted, along with Leonel Escamiilo, 43, who is accused of producing the phony IDs out of his basement. Authorities said they sold a bogus green card and Social Security card to an informant.

"According to the agents at Homeland Security, these documents looked so authentic that an ordinary lay person could not detect them to be phony," said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes. The feds were tipped off about a forged-ID-selling baker in summer 2011. A subsequent yearlong probe involved surveillance from cars and a helicopter, Hynes said.

The two suspects, who are being held on bail, face seven years in prison if convicted, followed by deportation to their native Mexico.

Combatting fraud against immigrants

From the Daily News:

Fraudulent businesses in rogue storefronts in Queens often fleece immigrants hunting for jobs or immigration help by taking fees for services they don’t deliver, according to a report out Thursday.

Many agencies also break the law by posting misleading signs and not providing contracts, researchers with New Immigrant Community Empowerment and the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center found.

They are urging the Queens district attorney to set up a special unit to target fraud against immigrants.

“Just walking down Roosevelt Ave., you notice the intensity with which services are targeting immigrants, said Valeria Treves, executive director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment.

“It’s very clear that there’s rampant substandard predatory practices by businesses in our community.”

Fake IDs bought on Jackson Heights streets

From the NY Post:

It’s a passport to trouble — and it can be bought for just $260 on the streets of Jackson Heights, Queens.

In just one hour, The Post was able to buy a phony green card, Social Security card and New York state driver’s license from a stranger on a corner — all of which could serve as a gateway to obtain legitimate IDs.

The cards are frighteningly real — convincing enough to fool creditors, potential employers and security at buildings and even the airport.

Experts said the biggest fear is that these IDs are being bought by people who slipped past border crossings.

Since no one in America fell for it...

These videos created to market the Atlantic Yards project to foreign investors - or should I say people who are being bribed with green cards in return for investing in this debacle - are really something else...



From Atlantic Yards Report:

Markowitz claims, incredibly, "Brooklyn is 1000 percent, 1000 percent behind Atlantic Yards."

He knows that's false. But it could help save Forest City Ratner some $191 million under the dubious exploitation of a federal program in which immigrant investors get green cards for themselves and their families in exchange for purportedly job-creating investments.

Markowitz closes by asserting that "there's nothing better than China and Brooklyn together."

There's some irony there, given that the version shown here is subtitled in Korean.

Meanwhile, the City apparently lured Caribbean teachers here with promises of green cards and never delivered on it.

Financing Atlantic Yards

From Brownstoner:

According to Atlantic Yards Report, Ratner's going to be headed out on a dog-and-pony show to China to get a few hundred wealthy Chinese to cough up a million bucks apiece to finance Atlantic Yards. What do they get in return? A green card!

How badly do you want to stay?

The Village Voice explains how illegals fake their weddings and marriages for green cards.

Green card scam targeted Mexicans

NEW YORK (AP/1010 WINS) -- Prosecutors say a New York City woman posed as a lawyer and made phony promises to get green cards for Mexican immigrants.

Teresa Nora Martinez is being held on $5,000 bond after her arraignment Monday on scheming to defraud and other charges. Her lawyer's name wasn't immediately available, and no telephone number can be found for her home.

The Manhattan district attorney's office says the 39-year-old Martinez took $12,000 from three Mexican immigrants. Prosecutors say she told two she was an immigration lawyer and told the third she worked with lawyers.

Prosecutors say the immigrants eventually discovered she didn't have a law license and demanded she give their money back, but she refused.

DA: Queens Man Posed as US Agent to Defraud Immigrants

NEW YORK (AP/1010 WINS) -- A Queens man faces charges that he swindled immigrants out of more than $1 million by posing as a government agent.

Queens prosecutors say Shane Ramsundar flashed a badge, wore a gun and told people he was an undercover Homeland Security agent. They say he extorted $43,000 from one victim by telling him he was on a terrorism watch list and might be deported if he didn't fork over cash.

Authorities say he told others he could get them green cards for a fee.

Prosecutors say Ramsundar also stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from immigrants who thought they were buying real estate in Florida.

Ramsundar is charged with larceny, fraud and impersonating a public servant.

Russians marrying for green cards

From the NY Post:

A slew of Russian immigrants are entering sham marriages in the States to obtain green cards -- and they're doing it in plain sight.

The Russian Advertiser, a Russian-language weekly, has an entire classified-ad section devoted to "delovoy brak," or "business marriages." Last week's issue had 34 ads from women and men hoping to come together in unholy matrimony.

One Sheepshead Bay man said he gets offers all the time from marriage brokers.

He said he knows half a dozen men who married young Russian and Polish women for cash.

A federal law-enforcement source agreed that it's a common practice in certain Eastern European and Russian immigrant neighborhoods.

Immigrant family swindled by con artist

From the Times Ledger:

A family of Korean immigrants who live in Bayside fear they may be split apart after a broker whom they paid to handle their green card applications failed to follow the proper procedures.

Joanne Lee, 17, who will be a senior this fall at Flushing’s Townsend Harris High School, said her family is concerned that she; her sister, Hayoung, 15,and their mother, Yoojung Choi Lee, could be deported after U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services denied their applications for green cards.

A broker whom the family paid $16,000 to handle the filings did not include all of the necessary documents, Joanne Lee said.

“She assured us all the proceedings were legal,” said Lee, who is an honor roll student. “But she was a fraud. She filed the wrong papers.”

Lee’s father, Bong Chang Lee, and brother, Jason, 5, would be allowed to stay in the United States. The mother and daughters first moved from South Korea to Queens in 2000 to find treatment for Hayoung Lee, who suffers from a form of epilepsy, but the father, who is a manager at a food plant in Rockland County, arrived shortly thereafter and applied for a green card separately. The couple’s son was born in the United States.