On Thursday the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut announced that a resident of Darien, Flor Consuelo del Carmen Caballero Bernabe, 55, a citizen of Peru, was charged by federal criminal complaint with immigration fraud offenses.
Caballero Bernabe was arrested and is currently detained.
As alleged in court documents and statements made in court, Caballero Bernabe traveled to the U.S. in 2000 on a non-immigrant visa and subsequently began using the identity and social security number (SSN) of a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico to reside, work, and maintain a Commercial Driver’s License in Connecticut.
Caballero Bernabe also used the fraudulent identity and SSN to apply for a U.S. passport in 2005, renew it in 2015, and use it to travel internationally.
In 2021, the U.S. passport was renewed in the name of Byron Ruiz after Caballero Bernabe completed the Probate Court process for a name and gender change. Caballero Bernabe again traveled internationally using the renewed passport.
It is further alleged that this investigation began after the individual whose identity Caballero Bernabe had originally stolen applied to the Social Security Administration seeking Social Security Disability benefits in 2022 and was informed that a person in Connecticut had been earning income using the same SSN.
Caballero subsequently made multiple false statements to federal agents investigating this matter.
The complaint charges Caballero Bernabe with passport application fraud, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years; misuse of a passport, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years; making a false claim of U.S. citizenship, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of three years; misuse of a social security account number, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of five years; aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory term of imprisonment of two years; and making false statements, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of five years.
U.S. Attorney Sullivan stressed that a complaint is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. Charges are only allegations, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
This investigation is being conducted by the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General, and the U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anastasia E. King.
According to a release from the Dept of Justice, the case is part of “Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).”