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HOUSTON<\/strong> – An undocumented immigrant in Houston<\/a> has been sentenced to federal prison for his role in a nationwide scheme to sell fake Texas paper vehicle tags<\/a>.<\/p>\n Emmanuel Padilla Reyes, 35, pleaded guilty May 13. He will also be required to pay $22 million in restitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Prison sentence for Texas tag scheme <\/p>\n The latest:<\/p>\n Reyes was sentenced to 60 months in prison and has been ordered to pay $22 million in restitution to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.<\/p>\n As Reyes is not a U.S. citizen, he is expected to face removal proceedings once he’s served his prison sentence, a Wednesday release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas, says.\u00a0<\/p>\n During his sentencing hearing, testimony was given by the family of a victim killed by a truck bearing a fake paper plate issued by one of Reyes’ dealerships, the release says. The court reported that many other victims were also harmed by Reyes’ scheme.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “The defendant\u2019s criminal scheme was not only illegal in itself, but also facilitated scores of other crimes,\u00a0such as armed robberies and drive-by shootings,” said U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei. “Texas motorists deserve to know vehicles on the roadways alongside them and their families are genuinely licensed, rather than the instruments of crime.”<\/p>\n “This case led not only to arrests and prison sentences for those behind a national multimillion-dollar scheme, but it also led to changes in the way temporary tags are issued in Texas. Changes that just went into effect July 1,” said Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams of the FBI Houston Field Office. “That\u2019s impactful, and I\u2019m so proud of our law enforcement partners and the FBI Houston case team who made it all happen.”<\/p>\n Scheme spreads thousands of fake Texas plates <\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n Reyes and his co-conspirators are said to have sold at least 550,000 Texas temporary buyer tags without selling any vehicles.<\/p>\n Reyes admitted to using at least two aliases for the scheme, the release says, using them to get used car dealer licenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also reportedly used falsified information for online applications in the scheme. The release says Reyes and his coconspirators advertised the false records online, including through social media platforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Leidy Areli Hernandez Lopez, 44, Octavian Ocasio, 53, and Daniel Christine-Tani, 36, were also charged and convicted in the scheme and were sentenced to prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lopez, also an undocumented immigrant, reportedly failed to report to prison. A federal grand jury returned an indictment Feb. 20 charging her with failure to surrender. Lopez is considered a fugitive, and a warrant remains outstanding for her arrest.<\/p>\n What you can do:<\/p>\n Anyone with information about Lopez’s whereabouts is asked to contact the FBI at 713-693-5000<\/a>.<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n Reyes will remain in custody pending transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.<\/p>\n The Source:<\/b> Information in this article came from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas, and previous FOX 26 reporting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Houston<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article HOUSTON – An undocumented immigrant in Houston has been sentenced to federal prison for his role in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":89793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[6082,4345,50,358,3187,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-89792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-crime-publicsafety","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114910644456239439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}