A federal grand jury in Richmond, Va. has indicted 22 members of an allegedly highly sophisticated and violent fraudulent document trafficking organization based in Mexico with cells in 19 cities and 11 states, including three cells in Virginia, authorities said.
Discovered through an ongoing investigation dubbed "Operation Phalanx," the organization is accused of kidnapping, beating and, at least on one occasion, murdering competitors and using violence to discipline its own members.
"The indictment portrays a deadly criminal organization that uses brutal violence to eliminate rivals, protect its turf and enforce discipline against its own members," said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride. "Thanks to the tremendous effort of ICE agents here in our district and throughout the country, we were able to bring these charges, expose the brutality behind this document cartel, and dismantle the organization."
According to the 12-count indictment, Israel Cruz Millan, 28, of Raleigh, N.C., managed the organization's operations in the United States, overseeing cells in nearly a dozen states that produced high-quality false identification cards for illegal immigrants.
The indictment alleges that Cruz Millan's organization sought to drive competitors from their territory by posing as customers and attacking them when they arrived to make a sale.
These attacks included binding the victims' hands, feet and mouth; repeatedly beating them; and threatening them with death if they continued to sell false identification documents in the area. The victims were left bound at the scene of the attack, and the indictment states that at least one victim died from the beatings, the indictment says.
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