TO Elvira Contreras Rodríguez, a 38-year-old Mexican woman was known as a tarot reader and for making people and houses “clean” in Tucson, Arizona. In June 2015, he told one of his clients that she had a U Visa, an immigration permit granted by the government to crime victims, and that she could help her get one. That’s how it started a fraudulent scheme that stole more than $ 90,000 from six migrants, who paid him trusting that they would obtain legal documents.
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At first, this woman told her victims that she worked for the office of Doralina Luna, a legitimate immigration lawyer. He later impersonated her and even pretended to have a plate from the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE). Therefore, he received payments of up to $ 7,500 in cash.
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His deception went so far that he repeatedly planted one of those affected in hearings in an immigration court. To a couple even gave him fake Social Security cards to make them believe that their processes favorably progressed before the Naturalization and Citizenship Service (USCIS). He took others to the reception of Attorney Luna’s office, pretending he did work for her.
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But none could regularize their immigration status with their “help.” It was all a lie.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) states that at least six people in Arizona fell into its grip. Those affected have been identified with their initials: LRM, FCM, AFGR, BML, JG and NF. He stole them $ 90,935, this including the payments you made an undercover agent of the National Security Investigation Unit (HSI), whose police operation concluded with the arrest of the scammer.
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Contreras Rodríguez, who studied until the sixth grade, She was sentenced to 18 months in prison and three years probation in a federal court in Tucson. He was also ordered to return $ 89,935 to the aggrieved.
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She confessed her crimes, but did not fully accept her guilt. At a hearing on September 18, 2019, this woman denied that she was posing as an ICE official. “I said exactly that I knew people who worked there, not that I worked there,” he assured Judge Jacqueline Rateau, as read in the stenographic version of said court hearing.
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– So, you said you knew or worked with an immigration lawyer with the initials DL (Doralina Luna). Right? ”Asked the magistrate.
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– No, I said it was that person, he replied, adding that Luna was, in fact, his legal representative.
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He also denied that he gave false Social Security cards to a marriage that between June 2015 and July 2017 paid him $ 24,000 to obtain U Visas. “I never gave them those documents, but they presented them as evidence,” the scammer claimed .
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An undercover operative caught her
In June 2015, Contreras Rodríguez received his first undue charge: $ 1,500 They were delivered by a woman identified with the initials LRM and who paid her to “guess the future” by reading the tarot cards. He promised that he would deliver that amount to attorney Luna to help you obtain a U visa.
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A month later, she took her and her husband (FCM initials) to the legal defender’s office and left them waiting in the lobby to follow the deception.
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For August 2015, he asked for another $ 1,500 in cash. He kept demanding money: only in July 2017 did the marriage give him $ 6,000. After two years they had already given him $ 24,000, an amount that included the payment of their services for processing citizenship and a contractor’s license.
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Even the husband went three times to an immigration court (between June and August 2017) thinking that there would be who he believed was attorney Luna. But she never arrived. When confronting the scammer days later, the woman scoffed saying they had no proof that they had paid her a single penny.
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To his bad luck, another victim did collect evidence: WhastApp conversations in which he asked on February 10, 2018 a payment of $ 350 and documents for the processing of a U Visa. From Mexico, the affected person turned the money and sent photos of identification and birth certificates.
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In this fact, the deception was discovered four days later, when a voluntary immigration advocate in Nogales, in the Mexican state of Sonora, crossed the border to visit Attorney Luna’s office. At that time it was learned that He had stolen some $ 1,835.
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“They used my name to defraud people, they used my reputation as an immigration lawyer for so many years to defraud and that does hurt, ”said attorney Doralina Luna to Arizona Univision.
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According to his account, at one time he was called immigration judges to ask him why he had not been in the hearings of his clients. He knew then that they were usurping his name.
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As soon as he learned about the sentence imposed on Contreras Rodríguez, Luna expressed in your Facebook page: “JUSTICE! Finally, after several years of investigation, the US judicial system has sentenced this fraudster who took advantage of her victims, who only wanted the American dream, posing as me. ”
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An alleged victim told Univision Arizona that the scammer showed up wearing a fake ICE uniform. “She said she could fix the papers for $ 5,000 because she had access with ICE, that she was the good one,” said Manuel Tapia, an undocumented person who trusted this woman with whom he met at his home in Tucson. “He wore a suit like ICE’s. We said: “Yes, it is true.”
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This fraud began to collapse in early 2018, when an undercover agent He posed as the acquaintance of a victim who was already cooperating in the investigation. The police asked Contreras Rodríguez for help with an immigration process and He handed him $ 2,500. She asked for 1,000 more dollars. I didn’t know that all the conversations had been recorded to bring her to justice.
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This case was investigated by the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) and the Office of Professional Responsibility of that same federal agency.
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