A citizen of the Dominican Republic, Kelvin Prado-Robles, also known as Frankely Robles-Guzman, pleaded guilty in New Haven federal court to fraud and immigration offenses. The announcement was made by David X. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
Court documents and statements revealed that Prado-Robles has never held legal immigration status in the United States. In January 2008, he was sentenced in Delaware to 24 months in prison for false representation of citizenship, passport fraud, and identity theft. He was deported to the Dominican Republic in February 2009 but was arrested again by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Newark, New Jersey, in February 2011 and deported a second time in September 2011.
Authorities said Prado-Robles reentered the U.S. illegally and began conspiring with Domingo St. Hilaire Rosario and Jamie Pinto starting in late 2017 to use stolen identities to obtain vehicles and motorcycles from dealerships across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. According to prosecutors:
“Rosario arranged for a car or motorcycle to be purchased or leased from a dealership in the name of an identity theft victim, and Prado-Robles or Pinto impersonated the identity theft victim at the dealership to complete the paperwork. Rosario supplied his co-conspirators with fraudulent identification documents bearing the victim’s personal identifying information, and with a fraudulent photo identification that contained the identifying information of the victim and a photograph of a co-conspirator. The conspirators intended to sell or export the vehicles.”
Through this scheme, at least 13 vehicles were acquired using stolen identities; attempts were made on at least two more vehicles. Law enforcement recovered some vehicles which were returned to dealers. The dealerships suffered losses exceeding $200,000.
Prado-Robles and Rosario fled to the Dominican Republic around 2018. In June 2023, Prado-Robles was arrested under another name—Kelvin Prado-Roble—in New Mexico on charges of illegal reentry into the U.S., pleaded guilty there as well, received a sentence of ten months imprisonment in November 2023, then was transferred to Connecticut where he remains detained.
He pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud (maximum penalty: twenty years imprisonment) and reentry of a removed alien (maximum penalty: ten years). Sentencing is scheduled for October 31.
Rosario was extradited from the Dominican Republic in May 2020; he pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft offenses and received a sentence of sixty-five months imprisonment on October 20, 2021.
Pinto also pleaded guilty—to conspiracy as well as fraud and identity theft—and received sixty months imprisonment on October 27, 2021.
The investigation involved cooperation between multiple agencies including U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with support from Vernon Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Anastasia E. King is prosecuting this case.
