2 Jacksonville men arrested in illegal alien construction fraud case (Florida Times-Union)

2 Jacksonville men arrested in illegal alien construction fraud case
Posted: April 11, 2011 - 5:12pm
By Dan Scanlan

Undercover surveillance of illegal aliens working at home construction sites in Duval and St. Johns counties led to Saturday’s arrests of two men on charges their company, HMC and Associates Construction Group LLC, filed false paperwork and laundered workers’ pay.

Moises M. Torres and Raul Hernandez-Rodriquez, both of Jacksonville, are in the Duval County jail on $300,000 and $200,000 bail, respectively.

The investigation has been under way since 2007 by the Money Laundering Task Force, made up of police, immigration and state financial investigators. It concentrated on subcontractors who avoid paying workers compensation premiums by setting up fake companies that file false insurance coverage certificates. That reduces the cost of a project and makes them more popular when a contractor is bidding for services, according to the arrest report.

Investigators started looking into HMC after research showed it had cashed payroll checks at check-cashing companies between March 4 and July 22, 2010, totaling $2.24 million. The payroll was done that way to avoid taxes and insurance coverage, the arrest report said.

The insurance company that accepted the company’s fake insurance certificate, which claimed a payroll of $70,200 and not $2.24 million, lost an estimated $216,097 in premiums, the report said.

Police surveillance on Hernandez-Rodriquez showed him supervising employees at six construction sites in Jacksonville and Northwest St. Johns County. The workers often had no valid Florida IDs, driver’s licenses or documents showing they were in the country legally.

Further investigation showed Torres, one of Hernandez-Rodriquez’s workers, had cashed about 50 payroll checks for about $1.7 million. It also showed the Social Security number Torres gave police belonged to a dead Illinois woman.