A 54-year-old Bayonne, New Jersey woman has been indicted on charges that she posed as an IRS agent, an immigration agent and an immigration-services provider to steal $25,000 from four people seeking legal status in the United States. Edith Capellan is accused of collecting thousands of dollars in upfront fees from clients after falsely guaranteeing them permanent residency or citizenship, then failing to deliver.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the indictment, which charges Capellan in New York State Supreme Court with one count each of third-degree grand larceny, first-degree immigrant assistance services fraud and first-degree scheme to defraud, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Bragg said Capellan allegedly impersonated federal agents while appearing legitimate to her victims, and said the investigation remains ongoing.
The alleged scheme ran between May 23, 2024, and June 5, 2026, according to the same release. During that period, the DA’s office says, Capellan falsely claimed to have submitted applications or taken other steps on her clients’ behalf, but she allegedly misrepresented her identity and refused to provide documents, receipt numbers or other evidence when victims tried to follow up.
Deleted Messages and Borrowed Identities
The office’s account of the case includes two specific allegations about how Capellan allegedly covered her tracks. In one instance, prosecutors say, she asked a victim to delete the messages they had exchanged with her. In another, she is accused of using one victim’s personal identifying information on a different victim’s paperwork.
Assistant District Attorney Dennis Dillon of the Financial Frauds Bureau is prosecuting the case, with supervision from the Immigrant Affairs Unit and other bureau leadership, per the DA’s office. The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and Capellan is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
A Pattern DA's Office Says It Has Seen Before
This is not the first time Manhattan prosecutors have brought a case built around someone posing as an immigration professional. In January 2024, the district attorney’s office announced the indictment of a 33-year-old man accused of posing as an immigration attorney while collecting thousands of dollars from clients, according to CBS News New York. The DA’s office separately maintains that recent immigrants seeking residency or citizenship are frequently targeted by criminals running a variety of schemes.
Bragg has also pointed to a newer wrinkle in these scams: imposter accounts posing as legal-service providers that increasingly use Facebook and WhatsApp to reach victims and convince them to send money, according to Gothamist. Victims of these schemes have lost tens of thousands of dollars in total, Bragg has said.
What the DA’s Office Is Telling New Yorkers
Bragg recommended that New Yorkers scrutinize the reliability of any purported immigration service provider offering deals that seem unusually generous, and urged particular caution with companies that lack a physical office and only engage with clients online. He said people should pause if an offer sounds too good to be true.
Martinez said residents can verify whether someone is a registered lawyer in New York using the state’s online attorney directory. The district attorney’s office says people can report immigration fraud by calling 212-335-3600 regardless of their immigration status.
Under New York’s immigrant assistance services fraud statute, a person commits the first-degree offense when, intending to defraud someone seeking immigrant assistance services, they violate the relevant state business law and wrongfully obtain more than $1,000 through false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises, according to the New York State Senate.
