Illegal immigrants getting scammed

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Saturday, March 18, 2006 | 7:09 a.m.

Marlene Monteolivo hears the complaints about the "international driver's license" on her weekday morning radio talk show. She sees why callers complain on her weekend shifts as a Spanish-language interpreter for Metro Police.

It's a document pitched to workers in the valley who are in this country illegally and can't get a Nevada driver's license.

For a couple hundred dollars, the pitch goes, you can get the permit, and your problems are over. Or they may be just beginning.

Monteolivo sees the problem every weekend. Police officers pull over drivers, who have the "license."

"They proudly pull out their international license ... and then they find out it's worthless," Monteolivo said.

The person, who paid as much as $249 for the document, may end up with a ticket for driving without a license and see their car towed.

"This is a big problem in our community," said Monteolivo, who calls it a scam.

Official documents called international driver's permits exist in the U.S. and 149 other countries that have signed onto a U.N. convention.

But they are not licenses. They are merely translations of the person's driver's license into 10 languages, which is recognized when used in conjunction with a valid license. The permits, offered in a person's country of origin, are meant for tourists or others who anticipate being in a foreign country for a short period of time - not for people living in a foreign country who are ineligible for a license in that country.

The issue has come to the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, which brought six complaints in 2003 against companies around the nation selling the permits fraudulently. Those cases resulted in orders barring the companies from selling the documents.

But outside of that, there's little regulation of businesses selling them, and there are several places across the valley that offer the "licenses" for sale as a way for immigrants to solve problems.

Storefronts and offices advertising in Spanish-language media will continue to draw naive, needy immigrants to their doors.

Like the ad in El Mundo newspaper which beckons, "Cancelled, expired license ... consult us," followed by, "International license valid in the U.S."

Or the one put out by a business called the "International Association of Automobiles," which offers a license good for 20 years allowing you to "drive legally in the U.S. and anywhere in the world."

In a visit to the Sahara Avenue office of the association, Johanna Hernandez sat at a desk with a picture of the license offered on a wall behind her and a U.S. flag on her desk. Hernandez said her agency charges $199 for the permit.

She said the permit was meant "to help people that have foreign licenses and need some kind of license to register and get insurance here."

However, Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Tom Jacobs said that a driver's license wasn't needed to register a car.

And several small auto insurance brokers in Hispanic neighborhoods - as well as AAA - offer policies to people with foreign driver's licenses.

Hernandez said her office sends applications from people seeking the permit to a New York company that shared the Las Vegas agency's name.

A call to that company's office revealed that the permits cost the Las Vegas agency $25 apiece - meaning the mark-up for the customer is 800 percent.

Alex Wise, a customer representative at the New York office, said the Las Vegas office sends him from 10 to 20 orders per week.

The State Department authorizes the American Automobile Association (AAA) and the American Automobile Touring Alliance as the only two companies that can sell the permits to U.S. citizens who want to travel abroad - at $10 apiece.

A visit to another company advertising the permits - this one on Eastern Avenue north of Bonanza Road - revealed an even larger price hike.

At the American ID System company, Saul Alejandro Gomez was charging $249 for the permits.

Katrina Bakunina, customer service representative for Vimar International, the New York company that makes the permits for Gomez, said she charges $25 for permits that expire in one or three years, and $30 for permits that expire in five or 10 years. Bakunina said the different expiration dates were tied to the expiration dates of the person's driver's license.

Gomez said his customers come to him after getting tickets for driving with a Mexican driver's license and then having a judge tell them that they have to get their licenses translated into English.

When asked whether most of his customers were tourists or people who lived in the valley, he talked about Latin-American immigrants.

"The problems in our countries aren't going to end any day soon," he said.

"This is a democratic country and if you work hard, you have a better life. Of course, you also have to respect the law."

In conclusion, Gomez said, "We help the community."