An employee at the Kansas Department of Revenue is face dozens of charges relating to a scam in which driver’s licenses were given to undocumented workers for bribes.
Samantha Jo Moore, 28, who worked at the Mission DMV office, was arrested Tuesday for allegedly taking bribes to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. According to Johnson County prosecutors, she had been taking the bribes since 2012.
Via KCTV 5 News:
Undocumented workers would allegedly pay $2,500 to get a driver’s license. Moore would receive bogus documents and process the paperwork as if it were valid, according to prosecutors.
Moore and two others are suspected of running the scam. In court Tuesday afternoon, Shaylynn Celedon and Luis Contreras were called ring leaders of the scheme. The bond for the three was set at $250,000.
Altogether, 10 people face dozens of charges, which include bribery and making a false statement. More people are expected to be charged as part of the scheme. Moore was placed under surveillance months ago, authorities said.
No word yet on how many fraudulent driver’s licenses were handed out, but if the scam went on for three years, the number could be in the hundreds — even thousands. Now multiply that by all the similar schemes that go on undetected at DMVs all across the nation, and it adds up to huge, election-changing number of new Democrat voters.
A similar cash-for-driver’s-license scam was broken up in Las Vegas several years ago. In less than a year — from June 10, 2010 to April 21, 2011 — 187 fraudulent state driver’s licenses were issued.
Claude Arnold, a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security based in Los Angeles, which covers Las Vegas, said the case was handled by the feds because it’s a matter of national security.
“This could be taken advantage of not just by the illegal immigrants who want to work but by a terrorist who wants to get on an aircraft,” Brown said.
He added that fraud involving DMV officials is often seen nationwide.
EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of the story incorrectly reported that there were 10 DMV employees arrested and facing charges.
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