5 arrested in fake license scam

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Law enforcement officers raided the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles branch in Georgetown on Wednesday, arresting one city employee and four other suspects on charges they set up a scheme to sell fake District driver’s licenses.

Authorities would not identify the suspects late Wednesday as the investigation continued, although they said some of those arrested were non-U.S. citizens.

The probe began about a year ago after a DMV internal investigator working on a case outside D.C. noticed irregularities in records from the Georgetown service center, department director Lucinda Babers said.

The agency informed the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which then contacted the FBI. Babers was informed of the investigation about three months ago, she said.

Babers did not know how many fraudulent driver’s licenses were sold out of the satellite service center, located at the bottom floor of the Georgetown Mall.

Mayor Adrian Fenty showed up for a news briefing at the scene. He deflected questions about whether the arrests were a further indication of widespread corruption among city employees. Instead, he said they were a sign that security safeguards were working.

“Everything we do has a black market value,” Babers said. “There are people who approach our employees on a daily basis to see if they can entice them.”

Driver’s licenses issued fraudulently by the government can sell for thousands of dollars on the black market. Some of the Sept. 11 hijackers obtained fake driver’s licenses from the Virginia DMV in Arlington.

This was the second FBI raid of the Georgetown office in four years. In 2004, authorities arrested one DMV worker and two nonemployees. In that alleged scheme, the two outsiders were accused of recruited customers to the DMV workers. The customers would pay up to $1,800 for the bogus IDs.

smccabe@dcexaminer.com

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