The name of an illegal alien heroin dealer found murdered last year turned up in an unexpected place… on the Democratic voter rolls.
Investigators found that Carlos Isaias Aponte, a native of the Dominican Republican, registered for a driver’s license in Massachusetts under a stolen identity: Francisco Ocasio, from Puerto Rico.
Under this identity, Aponte also claimed he was a U.S. citizen and registered to vote as a Democrat.
Aponte also used the stolen identity to receive welfare benefits, totaling $16,369.
The real Ocasio lives in Puerto Rico, and claimed his social security card was stolen in 2006–and only became aware that his identity was being used fraudulently in 2015, when federal authorities contacted him about their investigation into Aponte.
Authorities were ready to arrest Aponte for falsely registering to vote, aggravated identity theft, and falsely claiming tho be a U.S> citizen. However, his case got lost in federal bureaucracy after the U.S. Attorney in Boston, an Obama appointee, refused to press charges in December 2016.
Soon after, the Trump Justice Department passed the case along to ICE, who was prepared to arrested Aponte and deport him in early February 2017. He was found murdered one week before he was scheduled to be arrested.
However, Aponte’s case is not unique: Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson warned that Aponte’s actions are actually very common among illegal immigrants.
“That’s happening by the thousands all over this country,” said Hodgson. “The Dominicans use a lot of Puerto Rican IDs because the system there is very loose.”
“As a result, we have to step it up, because we’re not just talking about criminal heroin dealers,” he said. He added, ominously: “Think about how many impostors might be terrorists in the waiting.”
