A Mexican Citizen Living In Tijuana With 40 Aliases Was Sent To U.s. Prison After Admitting He Assumed An American Identity To Collect Almost $361,000 In Government Benefits Fraudulently.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California announced that Andres Avelino Anduaga, a Mexican citizen living in Tijuana, had admitted to obtaining a valid birth certificate of a United States citizen fraudulently in 1980, and then obtaining a valid California Driver’s License and a Social Security card.
Anduaga used the stolen identity of Abraham Riojos, a U.S. citizen from a rural Florida town, to apply for and collect Social Security disability benefits beginning in 1989. Over the next 27 years, Anduaga collected $244,441 in monthly Social Security benefits, and another $100,000 in Medi-Cal health benefits from the State of California.
Anduaga also admitted that he was a convicted U.S. felon under the name “Jose Reyes” who had been deported from the U.S. at least twice, including 1994 and 2000.
Despite his fingerprints and photo being on a criminal file with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Anduaga was able to use his stolen identity’s birth certificate to obtain a valid U.S. passport that allowed him to cross the Mexican-American border freely. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is planning on strengthening his nation’s southern border with a new specialized police force in an effort to crack down on drug-related gun violence and illegal crossings.
Alfonso Durazo, who has been picked by Obrador to head up the effort, told Bloomberg the new force will be sizable.
The force will be deployed to Mexico’s northern border with the U.S., as well.
“We’re going to create a border police force that will be highly specialized,” Durazo said.
“They need to apply the law,” including stopping undocumented migrants and human traffickers from crossing into Mexico. – READ MORE
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