Dozens of victims were injured in a scheme that lasted two years. The immigrants were sent to simulated investigations in a fictitious law firm and a staged courtroom. One person was deported for missing his actual hearing.
A group of Colombian citizens defrauded tens of thousands of dollars from Spanish-speaking immigrants who they thought were appearing in immigration court hearings before who they believed to be real lawyers and judges.
Four defendants were present in court in New Jersey on Saturday, reports the .
According to the formal accusation made public by prosecutors, the defendants sent immigrants, including political asylum seekers, for simulated judicial measures, in a fictitious law firm and a staged courtroom.
The scheme affected dozens of victimsincluding a person who was deported after having missed their real audiences to appear at fraudulent hearings, prosecutors say.
Three of the defendants, identified as Daniela Alejandra Sanchez Ramirez, Jhoan Sebastian Sanchez Ramirez and Alexandra Patricia Sanchez Ramirez, were arrested on Friday when tried to board a flight to Colombia.
The defendants face charges of electronic mockerymoney laundering and usurpation of functions of federal employees.
The group “called into question the integrity of our immigration system by pretending to be judges, security forces agents and lawyers”, according to the federal prosecutor Joseph Nocella Jr..
“The defendants engaged in this criminal conduct driven solely by greed, filling his own pockets and those of his accomplices in Colombia, for whom laundered tens of thousands of dollars proceeds from the victims’ funds,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.
The conduct attributed to them “revealed total and absolute disrespect for the potentially decisive consequences for the lives of victims — vulnerable people who not only lost large amounts of money, but also missed their actual immigration court hearings,” according to prosecutors.
Between March 2023 and November 2025, fraudsters used a fictitious law firm to attract immigrants with cases pending in court immigration, then charging them thousands of dollars per fake services which totaled more than $100,000, prosecutors said.
The fraudsters also charged additional fees for legal representation in simulated asylum interviews and other steps that were part of a network of fraudulent immigration procedures, the indictment alleges.
The defendants also sent threatening messagesThere is at least one person who discovered the scheme, according to prosecutors.
Lawyers and immigrant rights groups argue that Similar schemes are proliferating As the acceleration of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda has overloaded the courts federal agencies and immigration courts as part of an effort to deport tens of thousands of people from the United States.
Last year, the American Bar Association detected “multiple” cases of fraudsters using professional ID names and numbers of legitimate lawyers, and the use of increasingly sophisticated technology has made scams more difficult to identify as fake.
“The increase in fraud cases is attributed to the growing number of inspection actions and the ill-intentioned agents who seek to take advantage of immigrant communities in need of legal support”, says the organization.
“These actions cause irreparable damage to immigration processesdeplete immigrants’ scarce financial resources and leave victims vulnerable to detention or expulsion. Victims of immigration fraud face real and irreversible consequences.”
Unlike federal trial courts, the immigration court system operates under the purview of the Department of Justice, under the direction of the Attorney General. Pam Bondi.
Last year, the Justice Department instructed the nearly 600 immigration court judges to archive most cases presented to them, making immigrants immediately vulnerable to detention and “accelerated expulsion from the country, with mandatory detention”.
Within the scope of this guidance, masked Immigration Service agents have been patrolling the courthouse hallways and detain immigrants at the moment when leave their audiences.
This month, the Justice Department proposed that the Board of Immigration Appeals dismiss most of the cases brought before it. The “summary filing” function as a “decision by default” in virtually all cases, a move that immigrant rights advocates warn is erode the guarantees of due legal process.
