Identity and Benefit Fraud

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Identity and Benefit Fraud

DMV Identity and Benefit Fraud

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ICE places a high priority on investigating document and benefit fraud. These types of fraud pose a severe threat to national security and public safety because they create a vulnerability that may enable terrorists, criminals and illegal aliens to gain entry to and remain in the United States.

Document and benefit fraud are elements of many immigration-related crimes, such as human smuggling and human trafficking, critical infrastructure protection, worksite enforcement, visa compliance enforcement and national security investigations.

Document fraud, also known as identity fraud, is the manufacturing, counterfeiting, alteration, sale, and/or use of identity documents and other fraudulent documents to circumvent immigration laws or for other criminal activity. Identity fraud in some cases also involves identity theft, a crime in which an imposter takes on the identity of a real person (living or deceased) for some illegal purpose.

Benefit fraud is the willful misrepresentation of material fact on a petition or application to gain an immigration benefit. Benefit fraud can be an extremely lucrative form of white-collar crime, often involving sophisticated schemes and multiple co-conspirators. These schemes can take years to investigate and prosecute.

The Identity and Benefit Fraud Unit is charged with investigating and disrupting document and benefit fraud schemes. It coordinates its investigative efforts with other U.S. Department of Homeland Security components, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, as well as other federal agencies such as the U. S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Labor.

The unit also develops and advances policy initiatives and proposes legislative changes to address vulnerabilities in the immigration process to deter fraud and reduce the incentives for committing document and benefit fraud.

Other Identity and Benefit Fraud Initiatives

Document and benefit fraud are also components of other types of fraud involving state drivers’ licenses.

DMV Outreach Campaign

One of the fundamental challenges in combating document fraud at state-level Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) locations is the identification of employee misconduct. In order to enhance identification efforts, ICE developed an outreach campaign to raise awareness about employee misconduct and alert law enforcement to identity and benefit fraud schemes perpetrated at DMV facilities. ICE encourages the public and DMV employees to report corruption via the ICE tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE and via local DMV tip lines. Reporting this crime gives the public and employees an opportunity to be a part of the solution.

Operation Genesius

Operation Genesius was launched in 2009 as a voluntary partnership with the printing industry to share information and develop investigative leads about the practices of organized document fraud rings. Operation Genesius is based upon a similar and successful voluntary partnership project between the London Metropolitan Police Department and printing companies that affords an opportunity for the printing industry to collaborate with ICE to identify and disrupt document fraud.