Alvin Rivera, the 40-year-old orchestrator of a sophisticated identity theft conspiracy that netted almost $2 million in stolen vehicles and merchandise, has been sentenced to 8.5 years in prison and ordered to pay $389,141 in restitution to victims, according to the Department of Justice's press release.
Operating between October 2017 and September 2020, the carefully thought-out scheme saw Rivera leading a criminal enterprise that exploited the identities of unsuspecting U.S. citizens in order to fraudulently apply for and claim loans and other financial assistance. They used these ill-gotten gains to purchase as many as 47 vehicles from dealerships in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, and even successfully managed to export a number of them out of the United States.
Rivera cleverly leveraged the stolen personal information of U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico, providing it to co-conspirators who then visited dealerships to apply for 100% financing for late-model vehicles. The operation advanced by using fake Puerto Rico driver’s licenses and Social Security cards and the stolen biographical information of real citizens as proof of identification to continuously deceive authorities.
Upon Rivera's arrest, further investigations revealed that he was also involved in a fraudulent scheme in New Jersey between October 2017 and February 2018, using similar tactics to obtain vehicles through stolen identity information. In both cases, Rivera's leadership and manipulation of stolen identities enabled his criminal enterprise to secure goods and financial benefits to the tune of over $2 million.
As the investigation unfolded, a more dimension of the case emerged. The authorities uncovered a separate conspiracy led by Rivera that sought to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, Rivera and his accomplices utilized the stolen identity information of U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico to apply for and claim over $450,000 in Economic Injury Disaster Loans, a form of pandemic relief, from the Small Business Administration. According to Justice Department reports, members of the conspiracy fraudulently opened bank accounts to receive these funds, laundered them, and shared a portion of the profits with co-conspirators in the Dominican Republic.
The prosecution of Rivera and his co-conspirators was carried out by the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office with valuable assistance from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey; Lowell, Lawrence, Methuen, Haverhill, Woburn, and Dartmouth Police Departments; the Massachusetts State Police; and the Brockton Police Department. Homeland Security Investigations' Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force (DBFTF), a specialized investigative group comprising personnel from various state, local, and federal agencies, led the inquiry in the District of Massachusetts while the investigation in the District of New Jersey was conducted by the Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations.
