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• Buy Fake Mexican Id Cards

“They just took whatever I had of value, my change purse, that was all,” she recalledThe advent of smartphones changed all that. Now, many people carry a device worth hundreds of dollars in their pocket, and one that may also hold their bank or credit card information.That’s where “dummy” vendors such as Axel come in.

Buy Fake Mexican Id Cards

Axel says he sells three or four dummy phones a week out of his stall in a downtown electronics marketplace, next door to a colonial college building that dates to 1767.Axel, who asked his full name not be used for fear police would accuse him of selling fake merchandise, said all of his customers know they are buying fakes.“It’s useful for robberies, the large number of muggings happening in Mexico City,” Axel said.

In one indication of the size of the problem, federal authorities in April arrested nearly 1,200 illegal immigrants and a few managers working at IFCO Systems plants from Southern California to New York. More than half of the 5,800 employees at the pallet and crate manufacturing company in 2005 had invalid or mismatched Social Security numbers, authorities said.Immigration officials said the fake document business has become increasingly difficult to stop.In the past, authorities could often break up a network by raiding a central “document mill” where Social Security cards, passports and licenses might be drying on a large printing press, said Kevin Jeffery, deputy agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles.Now documents are made with illegal software on laptop computers. That mobility makes them harder to bust.“With a computer and a printer, you are in business,” Jeffery said.Authorities can also be stymied by complex delivery networks.Up to $300 for a package of IDsAround MacArthur Park, sellers who openly offer fake IDs do not actually carry any of the documents. Instead, they negotiate prices as high as $300 for a package containing a driver’s license, Social Security card and green card.

Next, they send the buyer to a less crowded area a few blocks away, where a picture is taken and the customer pays up.The picture and cash change hands a few times before arriving at an apartment where a laptop, printer and laminating machine spit out the documents. Within an hour, a runner — perhaps a young man dressed as a student, or an elderly woman — delivers the documents near the site of the original deal.Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, said it is not easy work. The biggest threats are disgruntled customers, undercover agents who record deals with cameras the size of a button, and gang members demanding protection money.When Hernandez senses a customer might be a police officer, he calls out “7/11,” and his underlings disappear.

If a seller is arrested, others collect money to bail him out of jail.“We are not trying to do anything bad,” said Sergio Guitierrez, 35, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who sells IDs. “Immigrants just need to work.”“This is the government’s fault,” said Maria Zuniga, 55, an illegal immigrant from Honduras who sells and transports documents. “They won’t even give us a number to work or a driver’s license.”© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.