Dominican Fugitive Charged with Identity Theft and Making False Statements in an Immigration Document

BOSTON – A Dominican national was arrested yesterday in Miami on a federal warrant for aggravated identity theft and immigration fraud charges filed in federal court in Boston in May 2019, as well as a federal warrant from 1997 in a drug trafficking case. 

Teodoro Tejada Rivas, 63, a Dominican national who resided in Lawrence until recently, was charged in an criminal complaint unsealed today with one count of making false statements in an immigration document and one count of aggravated identity theft. Rivas made an initial appearance on those charges in the Southern District of Florida today, and was detained pending a detention hearing scheduled for Sept. 16, 2019 in Miami.

The Massachusetts complaint alleges that since at least 2006, Tejada Rivas has been using the identity of a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico. Tejada Rivas used the name, social security number, and date of birth of the Puerto Rican man to apply for a U.S. passport in 2007, and to file an immigration form in 2016 in an attempt to bring his Dominican wife and children into the United States. The fraudulent immigration form was filed three years after the death of the U.S. citizen whose identity Tejada Rivas had stolen.

 United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; William B. Gannon, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, Boston Field Office; and John Gibbon, U.S. Marshal for the District of Massachusetts made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elianna Nuzum of Lelling’s Major Crimes Unit is prosecuting the case.