Man who allegedly sold fake IDs throughout Central KY for years faces federal indictment
A man who allegedly sold fake ID and social security cards in Central Kentucky for years while under investigation has been charged and indicted in federal court.
Tomas Leal-Paez was indicted Thursday on two counts of possessing a counterfeit permanent resident card and two counts of possessing a counterfeit social security card with the intent to sell them throughout Central Kentucky.
According to an affidavit, Leal-Paez allegedly sold fake IDs, fake drivers’ licenses and “green cards” to “undocumented immigrants, primarily from Mexico.”
The FBI began investigating Leal-Paez in 2019 after they arrested his family member for using the fake documents to obtain employment. The FBI turned them into a confidential informant, according to court documents.
Over the course of four years, the FBI used the family member to text, call and set up meetings to exchange documents for money with Leal-Paez, whose true identity was unknown to investigators throughout.
The informant would call Leal-Paez, request the documents with specifics on location and date of birth, and meet to purchase them once they were prepared, according to court documents.
In court documents, Leal-Paez was referred to by a phone number he used to conduct his business, and other aliases he created, according to court documents.
FBI investigators used the cell phone number to track Leal-Paez’s whereabouts and how many calls were made from his device, according to an affidavit. They found Leal-Paez traveled frequently between Louisville and Lexington, and was in frequent contact with someone tied to creating fake documents since at least 2015.
A second informant was also used during the investigation, according to court records. This informant also set up meetings to exchange allegedly fraudulent documents for money — all of which were overseen by the FBI. Five controlled purchases of the documents were monitored by the FBI, according to court documents.
Agents were able to track down Leal-Paez’s location after executing a search warrant on his phone number and using GPS technology to trace where the phone was located. The phone pinged at an apartment complex on Surfside Drive in Lexington and El Patio apartments in Louisville, according to court documents.
A task force agent and Lexington police officer attempted to knock on all the doors of the Lexington complex, but did not find Leal-Paez.
They spoke with the building’s manager, who said the apartment was rented by an individual named “Mario Reyes,” which investigators believe is an alias, according to court documents.
On May 8, Leal-Paez appeared in court for a detention hearing where he was judged a “serious risk for flight,” according to court documents.
“Evidence produced at the detention hearing demonstrates that the defendant has long engaged in producing, selling, and personally using false identification documents,” court documents allege. “He has little connection to this district or even this country. Moreover, he possesses the means by which to flee or fail to appear via the production of false identification documents.”
Leal-Paez was ordered to be detained, and if convicted, faces 15 years in prison, $500,000 in fines, and six years supervised release.
This story was originally published May 22, 2023 at 11:35 AM.
