ST. LOUIS–U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in St. Louis recently seized various fraudulent documents for people that may be in the U.S. illegally.
On Monday, August 16, officers seized four separate shipments that were arriving from Guatemala and Mexico. Each parcel contained a form of fraudulent documents, ranging from birth certificates, identity certificates to registration cards; one shipment had passports. CBP officers checked the names on the documents to see if the person legally resided in the U.S. with negative results, which means these people are most likely in the U.S. illegally.
One person CBP found in the system was ordered removed from the U.S. for attempting to enter the U.S. without inspection in September of 2020. Another person was arrested on Felony Forgery charges by the St. Louis City Police Department in January of 2010. The shipments were heading to residential addresses in St. Louis and Granite City, Illinois.
“Fraudulent activities are major concerns of CBP. Counterfeit identification can be very dangerous when it is used by criminals to take advantage of people or organizations,” said LaFonda Sutton-Burke, Director, Field Operations, Chicago Field Office. “Our officers do an outstanding job stopping these shipments. Our officers were able to remove these fraudulent travel documents from circulation and prevent the use of these documents in the future.”
CBP officers remain diligent in searching for counterfeit identification, through the art of targeting and physical inspections, and coordinate findings with CBP’s Fraudulent Document Analysis Unit, Homeland Security Investigations and other federal partners in an effort to combat this illicit activity.
CBP routinely conducts inspection operations on arriving and departing international flights and intercepts narcotics, weapons, currency, prohibited agriculture products, counterfeit goods, and other illicit items at our nation’s 328 international ports of entry.