As part of the scheme, owners of truck-driving schools obtained over 100 commercial driver’s licenses for their clients by paying as much as $5,000 each for the documents, prosecutors said on Tuesday, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The licenses have been invalidated along with several hundred others that prosecutors say were connected to suspicious activity, and were for drivers of 18-wheel cargo trucks and other large vehicles.
The truckers who received the licenses were involved in 23 accidents while driving with them. Fortunately none of the crashes involved fatalities, the prosecutors say.
The arrests are part of a series of bribery scandals that has rocked the DMV and have resulted in charges against 10 employees in the past two years.
“Public corruption is always a high priority for the U.S. Department of Justice, but our mission is particularly crucial when the conduct not only violates the public trust but endangers public safety,” U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner said at a news conference in Sacramento on Tuesday.
“We depend on the Department of Motor Vehicles to keep the roads of this state safe, and individuals who undermine that function for personal gain must not expect leniency from the justice system,” he said, per the Times.
The scheme has resulted in the issuance of at least 100 fraudulent licenses, Wagner said, per The Sacramento Bee. He said he’s confident that wrong-doers hauled in “tens of thousands of dollars” in return for the illegal licenses.
“It’s hard to know exactly,” he said. “We’re really not sure when they started.”
The idea of “unskilled and untested” drivers behind the wheels of enormous trucks on the highways is “honestly quite chilling,” said Carol Webster, who’s the acting special agent in charge of investigations for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Sacramento, at Tuesday’s news conference.
Frank Alvarez, the chief of the DMV’s investigations division, said the division was contacted by a department manager in 2012 regarding the possible licensing “irregularities.” The department has since revoked or canceled 602 licenses “that appear to have been obtained through fraudulent means,” including those that were cited by Wagner.
Individuals who held these licenses “can walk into any DMV office in the state and apply for a legitimate license,” Alvarez said. He and his staff have been working with federal authorities in the investigation that has so far brought charges against three former DMV employees and three truck-school operators, the Bee reports.
The scheme lasted from June 2011 until March 2015, according to Tatum King, acting agent in charge of San Francisco Homeland Security Investigations, Courthouse News Service reports.
Emma Klem, 45, a Salinas DMV employee, and trucking school owner Kulwinder Dosanjh Singh, 58, of Turlock, pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of allegedly conspiring to commit bribery and identity fraud, Wagner said.
Unsealed Friday, the indictment charges trucking school owners Pavitar Dosangh Singh and Mangal Gill along with DMV examiners Andrew Kimura and Robert Turchin with alleged conspiracy, bribery, and fraud.
The DMV in California has been plagued by other scandals as well over the last couple of years. In February, a former San Diego DMV official pleaded guilty to allegedly taking bribes to set license suspensions aside and provide unauthorized temporary licenses to drivers who were arrested on DUI charges.
At the DMV’s Westminster office, an employee was arrested in March on charges of allegedly taking bribes for driver’s licenses, and in June, a CHP officer was charged with allegedly taking bribes in a scheme at the El Cajon DMV office.
Reuters reports that the driving schools had several operations in northern and central California cities, including Sacramento, Salinas, and Fresno, the FBI reports.
