Three Mexican nationals are awaiting extradition to the United States to stand trial with 23 other defendants who operated a multimillion-dollar fake ID ring in Chicago.
The crime organization turned to murder when competing fake ID firms encroached on their turf, according to a news release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Manuel Leija-Sanchez, 40, who was arrested in Mexico last Friday; his brother Pedro Leija-Sanchez, 35, who was arrested in Mexico in August; and brother Julio, arrested in April in Chicago, are among 23 defendants facing federal charges for their role in the fake ID scheme.
The news release said the Leija-Sanchez organization had been openly operating a “bustling” fraudulent document business in Chicago since at least 1993 near the Little Village Discount Mall.
The indictment alleges that the group sold as many as 50 to 100 sets of false IDs every day, charging $200 to $300 per set. Each set included a Social Security card and either a green card or state driver’s license.
In April, the Leija-Sanchez organization allegedly ordered the killing of Guillermo Jimenez-Flores, a former member who turned into a rival fake ID maker. Court documents allege that Gerardo Salazar-Rodriguez, 34, was paid to kill Jimenez-Flores by the Leija-Sanchez brothers, and that the brothers also worked with Salazar-Rodriguez to kill another victim in Mexico known as “Bruno.”
The three Leija-Sanchez brothers and Salazar-Rodriguez were each charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy, murder in aid of racketeering, and conspiracy to murder, and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder outside the United States.
On April 24, agents from ICE, the FBI and the Secret Service seized computers, laptop computers, printers, scanners, a cutting board, hundreds of blank IDs, Social Security cards and more than $220,000 in cash.
The organization allegedly recruited illegal aliens to sell the fake documents, and put them to work for the organization to pay off their debt for being smuggled here.
During one wiretapped phone all, Julio Leija-Sanchez said “we’ve been here for 20 years and a couple of times they have caught people. Not us.”
