Two Florida men both were sentenced for their involvement in a commercial driver’s license fraud scheme, the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General’s Office announced.
Santos Alamo and Gustavo Soler were sentenced July 29 in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla., to 21 months imprisonment, followed by two years’ supervised release, according to DOT-OIG; Alamo and Soler previously were arrested along with two accomplices for their role in a CDL fraud scheme and subsequently charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and the fraudulent production and transfer of identification documents.
The DOT-OIG investigation disclosed that both men conspired to pay bribes to an employee of the Pinellas County Tax Collectors Office in Largo, whose responsibility was to monitor CDL applicants and ensure their qualifications before a CDL was issued. Once this employee received a monetary bribe, they used their employment position to fraudulently issue CDLs to individuals who did not have the requisite training and documentation to support their qualifications, DOT-OIG said.
The DOT-OIG investigation was conducted jointly with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida Highway Patrol and the Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles, Division of Driver License.
