Multi-State Fake Drivers’ License ‘Ringleader’ Sentenced to 6 Years

A former northern New Jersey resident who authorities say ran a multi-state scheme that provided fake driver’s licenses and other documents to people in the country illegally has been sentenced to prison.

A federal judge in Newark sentenced Young-Kyu Park to six years in prison on Thursday.

The 58-year-old former resident of Fort Lee was one of nearly two dozen people charged in June 2012. Park was living in Los Angeles at the time of his arrest. Suspects were arrested in New Jersey, New York, California, Nevada, Virginia and Georgia.

The U.S. attorney’s office alleges Park obtained blank immigration forms that were then filled out with customers’ personal information and used to procure driver’s licenses and other forms of identification. The ring also produced counterfeit documents including passports.

Among those arrested was a contract employee of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services who was convicted of stealing the forms used in the scheme.

At the time of the arrests, the U.S. attorney’s office said as many as 700 transactions involving fraudulent documents had been identified, most by South Koreans who were in the United States illegally and who each paid between $3,000 and $4,500 for the service.

In addition to his prison term, Park was ordered to forfeit $1.2 million.