A Brazilian national living illegally in Boston was sentenced on April 9 for conspiring to obtain driver’s licenses for individuals who were not eligible, mainly illegal aliens. Gabriel Nascimento De Andrade, age 27, received a sentence of time served—450 days in prison—and now faces deportation. He pleaded guilty on March 6 to one count of conspiracy to unlawfully produce and possess identification documents with intent to transfer.
The case highlights ongoing efforts by federal authorities to address fraudulent schemes that help ineligible applicants secure official identification. The scheme involved producing false documents and facilitating the acquisition of driver’s licenses for those barred from obtaining them under state laws.
According to court records, from November 2020 through September 2024, Nascimento De Andrade and co-conspirators fraudulently obtained New York and Massachusetts driver’s licenses for customers who did not reside in those states or were otherwise ineligible. Prior to July 2023, Massachusetts did not allow illegal aliens to receive driver’s licenses; New York began allowing it in 2019. The group collected money from customers seeking these fraudulent services. In one instance on April 24, 2024, Nascimento De Andrade accepted $450 cash at a Plymouth Registry of Motor Vehicles parking lot in exchange for providing a fake cable bill as proof of residency.
The conspirators used various methods such as staging photographs and creating forged driving school certificates so clients could bypass written permit tests required by the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (NY DMV). They also transported Massachusetts-based clients to NY DMV offices using falsified residency documents so they could apply as if they lived locally. After successful road tests, licenses were mailed by the NY DMV or Massachusetts RMV to addresses controlled by the defendants before being handed over directly.
Authorities say more than one thousand fraudulent applications were submitted through this operation, resulting in over six hundred illicitly obtained driver’s licenses and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients overall.
Nascimento De Andrade is the third defendant sentenced in this investigation; Cesar Agusto Marin Reis received a sentence of 290 days’ imprisonment last September while Helbert Costa Generoso was sentenced last October to nine months’ imprisonment. U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley announced the sentencing along with officials from Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.