83 Illegal Immigrants Held in Crackdown on Phony Documents : Sting: INS targeted widening number of rings that provide counterfeit proof of residence.

After a two-month investigation, federal agents arrested 83 illegal immigrants in sting operations over the last week, targeting a burgeoning group of counterfeit document rings that have sprouted over an obscure immigration program known as registry.

The immigrants were lured to the Los Angeles headquarters of the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service ostensibly to be interviewed for permanent residency.

Instead, special agents were waiting to arrest those with fraudulent registry documents provided by the counterfeiters. INS agents also arrested five people believed to be the leaders of the counterfeiting operations.

The registry program allows foreigners to become permanent residents if they can prove that they have lived continuously in the United States since Jan. 1, 1972. Only 2,200 immigrants nationwide qualified last year.

Two months ago, immigration officials in Los Angeles noticed a dramatic rise in registry applications, from just a few dozen each month to several hundred a day. Most of the applicants were natives of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Investigators traced the applications to two immigration consulting offices that generated thousands of forged documents generally used to prove residency, including rent receipts, utility bills and employment records. The investigators said the documents were sold to illegal immigrants from coast to coast and as far as Pakistan for up to $7,500 a packet.

“This appears to be the new frontier,” said John Brechtel, assistant district director of investigations for the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles.

The phony documents apparently were mass-produced and many included the same rent receipts, with the same serial numbers for the same apartment. Letters from the same employers cropped up repeatedly.

In some cases, young applicants in their early 20s submitted 20-year-old receipts for cars and appliances that they said they had purchased when they were just toddlers.

“The stuff was just flagrantly bogus,” supervising Special Agent Frank E. Johnston said. “They were banking on no one checking at all.”

The sting operation began last Tuesday, when 67 registry applicants were arrested on immigration violation charges. The five leaders of the counterfeiting ring taken into custody were identified as Yolanda Chavez and Marco Garcia of Pomona and Surjit Singh, Aurang Zaib Anwar and Paul Singh of Los Angeles. All five have been arraigned on federal fraud charges.

On Tuesday, interviews were scheduled for another 501 registry applicants, but only 16 showed up, all of whom were arrested.

“Obviously, word got out,” Johnston said. “It amazes me that anyone showed up. I guess some people are kind of thick.”

The registry scam is the latest twist in a booming forged document industry that has taken root in Los Angeles since the passage of the landmark 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

The law moved to eliminate the vast underground of illegal immigrants by granting legal status to most of those who could prove they had continuously lived in the country since Jan. 1, 1982.

To curtail the future flow of illegals, it imposed stiff penalties on employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants. The act required employers to check that each prospective worker had the proper documents that proved their legal status in the United States.

The amnesty program and employer sanctions created an immediate demand from illegal immigrants for forged passports, Social Security cards, permanent resident cards and other documents.

Brechtel said counterfeiting operations broken up this week are probably among several that have risen to take advantage of the registry program.

Brechtel said many of the applicants came from New York and had arranged the purchase of the registry packets through overseas dealers.

He said that the forged documents were poorly done and that the operations stood little chance of success.

“If this one had succeeded, I think we would have seen hundreds of thousands of applications,” he said.