Florida Cops Bust Gang Selling Driver’s Licenses, Including CDL, to 1,000 Illegal Aliens

The state of Florida has busted a group, including Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) workers, who were selling driver’s licenses to illegal aliens for cash.

State investigators busted two DMV workers stationed at a facility in Bay County, in Florida’s panhandle, and charged them for selling nearly 1,000 driver’s licenses for cash. Six others were also arrested in the scheme.

“Florida’s Sheriffs are on the front lines of our state’s fight against illegal immigration, and Sheriff Ford is rooting out the corruption they bring into our state,” said Attorney General James Uthmeier on Thursday. “My warning to any illegal alien coming to Florida to commit further crimes: we are going to find you, hold you accountable, and then send you back to where you came from.”

The scheme came to light when Secretary of State officials began noticing that the two DMV employees had been issuing an uncommonly large number of road tests.

According to the South Florida Reporter:

Chuck Purdue, Bay County’s tax collector, said his office first noticed indications of the fraud in April, when he saw one of the employees had conducted 295 road exams in one month — the average is 20 to 25.

After an investigation was launched, surveillance footage showed a number of individuals seeking out the two employees.

Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford told reporters the illegal driver’s licenses included commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs).

“Let me be clear, that putting untested, unqualified drivers, especially those with commercial licenses on our roads is an unacceptable risk to every family in this state,” the sheriff said.

Trucking publication Overdrive reported:

Florida does issue non-domiciled CDLs, or CDLs to non-citizens or U.S. citizens who live in other states. In 2024 the state issued 24,220 CDLs to U.S. citizens and 5,614 to non-citizens, according to Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Prosecutors say that non-citizens were coming from hundreds of miles away to get their illegally issued licenses.

American Truckers United posted on the arrests, saying that “Florida is one of 10 states flooding the trucking industry with illegal foreign labor”:

Investigators also discovered that several others were advertising the services of the two employees and had created a network of informants who were spreading the word to illegal aliens across the state.

Officials announced the arrests of Bancelie Velazco, Demetrius Smith, II, Niurbis Rosales, Leonardo Gutierrez, Hung Du, Isbrieta Parra, Zoila Gonzalez-Pena, and Mirna Fernandez. Charges include DMV employee issuing an unlawful driver’s license, official misconduct, and unlawful possession of a driver’s license.

The problem is not focused solely in Florida. Some of these illegal licenses are being used elsewhere by human traffickers to move illegal aliens across the country.

Police in Texas, for instance, recently collared a woman who was caught driving a commercial box truck filled with illegal aliens.

WATCH — Texas DPS Discovers 25 Illegal Aliens Being Smuggled by Woman:

But many more of these unqualified drivers are being hired by American businesses in shipping and construction.

An epidemic of traffic accidents and deaths has hit American roads over the last few years as more companies indulge cheap labor practices by hiring untrained, unqualified, and often uneducated illegals to drive trucks both over the road and locally.

“We’re trying to make a statement so that the feds will do something,” said Shannon Everett, a cofounder of American Truckers United. “The foreign truck drivers — including many illegals — are killing American drivers, slashing truckers’ income, and pushing companies out of business,” he told Breitbart News in March.

Many migrants took trucking industry jobs after entering the U.S. through President Joe Biden’s loose border policies, either at the southern border or at international airports.

“For us, the biggest problem is …. illegal immigrants coming in and getting the license without anything,” Rhaman Dhillon, the founder of the California-based North American Punjabi Truckers Association, told Breitbart News. “No training, no language [test], no nothing. They still get it.”

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